How the EIC Women Leadership Programme helped FeJuice CEO Bojana Mumović shift strategy, delegate and expand
- ›Bojana Mumović, CEO and cofounder of Serbian startup FeJuice, credits the EIC Women Leadership Programme with sharpening her leadership and strategic focus.
- ›FeJuice develops functional food approaches to prevent iron deficiency anemia and is a Women TechEU beneficiary.
- ›The EIC Women Leadership Programme mixes cohort training, one to one mentoring and business coaching but it does not provide direct funding to participants.
- ›The EIC positions the programme within a wider set of Business Acceleration Services that claim large outreach and matchmaking results, although many impact indicators are self reported.
From juggling roles to delegating strategy: one founder’s account of the EIC Women Leadership Programme
As International Women’s Day approaches the European Innovation Council highlighted women innovators who have taken part in its Women Leadership Programme. This profile focuses on Bojana Mumović, CEO and cofounder of FeJuice, a Serbian startup that targets iron deficiency anemia with functional food products. Mumović describes how participation in the programme helped her clarify priorities, delegate operational work and expand her business activity internationally. Her account illustrates the role that publicly supported leadership programmes can play for women founders while raising questions about how impact is measured and how much practical support these programmes provide beyond training and networking.
The entrepreneur and the product
Bojana Mumović combines a marketing and entrepreneurship background with leadership of a health-focused deep tech startup. FeJuice aims to offer functional food solutions to prevent iron deficiency anemia without the gastrointestinal side effects commonly associated with iron supplements. The company is a Women TechEU beneficiary. Mumović says her role is to translate scientific innovation into consumer products with strong market fit and to ensure those products reach people at risk of iron deficiency.
Why Mumović joined the EIC Women Leadership Programme
Before joining the programme Mumović was balancing two companies and parenting two children as a single mother. She describes the decision to apply as driven by the need for practical leadership tools and peer support. After participating she reports gaining greater clarity on strategic priorities, learning to delegate more of the day to day operations and making concrete moves such as opening an agency in Dubai to support expansion.
Her testimony stresses interpersonal benefits of the cohort model. She highlights the reassurance of meeting other women founders facing similar constraints and the energising effect of being part of an engaged peer group. She also lists specific training topics she found useful including energy management, storytelling, leadership styles and tools relevant to raising investment.
What the EIC Women Leadership Programme offers and what it does not
Eligibility and application timing
The programme is open to women researchers and entrepreneurs from the EIC and EIT communities. Advanced entrepreneurial cohorts target experienced women leaders in cofounder or c suite roles while researcher cohorts support women who want to translate research into businesses. Applications for cohorts open as calls on the EIC Community platform. For example the 9th cohort had application steps and a timeline in 2025 with an introductory workshop in June and a kick off bootcamp planned for mid September 2025. The EIC indicates future calls may open in early spring 2026 for subsequent cohorts.
Where the Women Leadership Programme sits in the EIC ecosystem
The Women Leadership Programme is one offering within the EIC Business Acceleration Services. The EIC promotes a wide menu of support mechanisms that include investor readiness programmes, international trade fair participation, corporate partnership matchmaking and innovation procurement support. The EIC publishes impact figures for these services, but readers should note that many numbers are output measures rather than independently audited outcomes.
| Service area | EIC published metric | Timeframe or note |
| One to one meetings | +20 000 meetings between awardees and corporates, procurers and investors | Since 2021 |
| Deals and fundraising | 595 deals and EUR 350 million raised through investor outreach | Since 2021 |
| EIC Scaling Club fundraising | EUR 1.2 billion raised by members since joining | Since 2021 |
| Trade fairs turnover | EUR 42 million turnover from trade fairs | Figures since 2024 only |
| Innovation procurement | EUR 7.7 million raised through procurement support out of EUR 28.4 million in tenders submitted | Since March 2024 only |
| Pilot matches | 22 ongoing and 16 completed pilots supported with EUR 1.93 million | Since March 2024 only |
The EIC also reports skills related outputs. For example it states that over 2 400 awardees and applicants were coached and that 90 percent of Women Leadership Programme alumnae reported increased entrepreneurial skills. These are useful indicators but they are largely self reported. They do not replace independent evaluation that tracks long term company survival, revenues or measurable job creation attributable to the interventions.
Practical outcomes reported by the founder
Mumović describes several concrete shifts after the programme. She says she began delegating operational tasks to focus on strategy. She opened an agency in Dubai to support growth and reported working fewer hours while maintaining business performance and improving personal wellbeing. These outcomes are typical of founders who reorient their time allocation and build managerial capacity. They also depend on having a team to delegate to and on access to markets and customers that make expansion viable.
Mumović strongly endorses the programme and actively recommends it in her community. She acknowledges the time commitment but views the return on investment as high, particularly in terms of mindset shifts and access to a supportive peer network.
A measured view on claims and gaps
Public innovation services such as the EIC Women Leadership Programme play a legitimate role in addressing barriers that women founders face. Training, mentoring and networks can reduce isolation and accelerate founder learning. At the same time programme narratives should be read with healthy skepticism. Impact claims often rely on participant surveys. They do not always capture long term commercial outcomes or counterfactuals. Financial support for women led deep tech ventures is uneven across the EU and programmes that focus exclusively on skills cannot substitute for sustained access to capital, procurement opportunities and market validation.
How to follow up
If you are interested in the EIC Women Leadership Programme watch the EIC Community Platform for calls and the EIC BAS newsletter for updates. For questions about programme logistics contact the EIC Women Leadership Programme team via the EIC Community contact page or the WLP inbox indicated in programme materials. If you represent a startup consider also applying to Women TechEU or checking EIC Accelerator and other Horizon Europe instruments that provide funding and business acceleration services.
Mumović’s story is a useful case study for how cohort based leadership programmes can change founder behaviour. It also highlights that training plus coaching must be part of a broader support architecture that includes capital, regulatory clarity and access to customers before claims about systemic change can be substantiated.