February 17, 2026
Silvija Martincevic – CEO, Deputy
Purpose Meets Profit: Deputy CEO Silvija Martincevic on Empowering Global Shift Workers
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The global economy doesn’t run on boardrooms. It runs on the people who keep the real world moving. They’re the ones staffing hospitals and elder care centers, keeping restaurants humming through the dinner rush, unloading trucks before sunrise, and holding retail together during the most chaotic shopping weeks of the year. They are essential — and they are everywhere. Yet for decades, the systems built to support them have been designed around office life. Schedules go up late. Communication breaks down. Policies feel inconsistent. But when those barriers start to lift — when people get clarity, consistency, and tools that actually fit the way they work — the job becomes something you can take pride in again, and the entire operation runs stronger because of it.
Few leaders understand that opportunity better than Silvija Martincevic, CEO of Deputy. With a career spent scaling global companies and building billion-dollar businesses, she now leads a workforce management platform used by millions of shift workers and thousands of businesses across more than 100 countries. Before Deputy, Silvija helped companies grow into billion-dollar brands, forged partnerships with Walmart, Amazon, American Airlines, and Target, and increased revenue from $100 million to well over $1 billion. At Groupon, she built a $1 billion international business while serving as CMO and GM of its Health & Beauty division. Today, we’ll break down her work, her leadership philosophy, and the lessons she’s learned building high-growth companies that serve both scale and purpose.
The Untapped Opportunity of Deskless Work
Silvija shared two statistics that reframed how she evaluated the shift work economy. Eighty percent of the world’s workforce is deskless and work on their feet. Yet less than one percent of technology investment has historically gone towards serving them. Silvija sees that as both a market failure and a massive opportunity. As she put it, “Eighty percent of the world’s workers are deskless workers… the second stat, less than one percent of all investment in tech went into this community. And if that is not a market failure, I don’t know what is.”
That is the gap Silvija is focused on closing at Deputy. The platform supports tens of thousands of small businesses and more than a million daily users who rely on it for scheduling, shift swaps, communication, time tracking, and compliance. Silvija argues that digitizing the basics is not just about efficiency. It is also about dignity. When workers know their schedules, understand expectations, and can communicate easily with managers and peers, they regain control and pride in their work.
Navigating Generational Shifts And The AI Era
Silvija pointed to a workforce reality that many companies are still learning to manage. For the first time, five generations are working side by side. They bring different expectations around technology, flexibility, and leadership. Silvija noted that Gen Z tends to be more purpose-driven and more comfortable adopting new tools, while older generations can be more skeptical. In her view, businesses win retention by designing policies and workflows that create flexibility without chaos. As Silvija noted, “This is the first time that businesses have five generations working, and those five generations have very different perspectives and different ways of working.”
Silvija also sees AI as a defining force in the next era of shift work. She believes the risk is not that frontline workers will refuse to adopt AI. The larger risk is that employers will fail to communicate clearly about how AI is being used. Silvija described this as a trust gap rather than an adoption gap. Workers want transparency. They want to understand what data is being collected, how decisions are being made, and whether AI is being used to support them or evaluate them in ways they cannot see.
Leadership Lessons From A Rebooted Career
Silvija’s advice for people early in their careers is to drop the pressure of having a perfect plan. She said there is no such thing as a grand plan, and she encouraged younger professionals to release themselves from that anxiety. Instead, Silvija emphasized service. Help your boss, help your colleagues, help customers, and build leadership skills by making others better at their jobs.
Silvija also urged people to chase learning that feels uncomfortable. She shared how a mentor pushed her from economics into sales so she could learn how to explain her insights to clients. Later, another leader encouraged Silvija to step into marketing and global leadership roles she had never formally held before. Each leap was scary, but each created new capability. Silvija’s point was simple. The fastest growth happens when you take the job you think you are not ready for and learn your way into it.
