Zihnija has almost 40 years of experience. He worked in the former large business systems Famos and Energoinvest and was an assistant at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering in Sarajevo. He has over 25 years of direct experience in working with SMEs in BiH.

For 20 years, he has been running the EBRD’s ‘Consulting for Small Businesses’ program. This program has so far cooperated with over 1,200 BiH. company, and several hundred consultants and advisors on various business improvement projects. Zihnija also performed practical consulting tasks and held seminars in over 100 local companies.

He has a master’s degree in mechanical engineering and a doctorate in economics, and he also works as a lecturer at the Sarajevo School of Science on the course Natural Resource and Environmental Economics.