Tomislav Matic´ ’94 left the war-torn former Yugoslavia,
nearly became a priest in Los Angeles, studied business in
Chapel Hill and worked on Wall Street. A chance encounter
in Boston took him full circle.
Matic´ (MAH-tich) is a founding partner in Quaestus, a
private equity firm based in Zagreb, capital of Croatia, the
south-central European country that declared independence
from Yugoslavia in 1991. Croatia then fought Serbian forces
in a bloody, four-year war that ravaged the Balkans.  More
recently, Croatia transformed its economy, from bustling
Zagreb to gorgeous Adriatic resorts, and repaired much of the
physical and emotional damage from its complicated past,
putting it on track to join the European Union by 2012.
The emerging economy is part of what drew Matic´ back
to Zagreb, where he was raised from the time he was 9. For
Matic´ — now 39, married and with two young children —
going home has been quite a journey.