Pontis is an early-stage company that brings problem owners, problem solvers, capital providers and market standard-setters into decision-based ecosystems across Europe’s high-stakes domains. This page sets out what that means, the principles the work runs on, and who is behind it.
That sentence is written to be argued with. Its only test is whether a specific decision moves because the right people finally worked from the same context — not whether a room was full.
A gathering earns its cost when a decision gets closer. Formats are chosen for the decision at hand — who has to be in the room for it to move — rather than for the size of the audience or the profile of the stage.
Not attendance as the measure of success.
Alignment without shared context is a photograph. The intelligence layer establishes what changed, why it matters and who it affects, so the people who meet start from the same picture instead of five separate briefings.
Not a room introduced to the problem on the day.
No single company or national programme holds the technology, the capital, the demand and the permission a sovereign capability needs. Pontis organises the set of actors around a named challenge rather than backing one standout and hoping it scales.
Not one champion asked to carry a continent.
Trust is a function of frequency. A single event is a moment; a cadence of signals, working sessions and gatherings is what turns a set of organisations into a group that can commit to something together.
Not a one-off summit with a follow-up email.
Co-founder & CEO
For more than two decades, Gergana Nikolova has built and led high-level business forums, bringing together tier-one speakers and audiences in the industries and entrepreneurial ecosystems where technology, capital and security converge to underpin Europe’s prosperity.
Her work combines pattern recognition with content architecture: anticipating the agenda before it is set, distinguishing structural change from passing turbulence and translating intelligence into formats in which business, government and investors can make decisions. Pontis turns that expertise into a platform and deploys it at the scale of CEE and the Eastern Flank.
That track record brings Pontis qualified networks across government and enterprise, tested convening formats and long experience of market-making in high-stakes domains.
Capital is where that track record was built. It is not a Pontis client, shareholder or partner, and its audience is not a Pontis asset.
Co-founder & investor
Zoran is a visionary entrepreneur, growth strategist and angel investor with a double-digit portfolio across different domains. He is the founder and managing partner of VertoDigital, where he has spent over a decade helping B2B technology companies scale their products.
Alongside his ventures, Zoran actively backs various initiatives aiming to reinforce European sovereignty and competitiveness.
Pontis is a young company with experienced founders. Those are two different things, so they are counted in two different columns.
20+ — Years building and leading Capital’s event business — Gergana Nikolova’s track record, not a Pontis result.
Source: capital.bg (opens in a new tab)That figure describes Capital (opens in a new tab) , where Gergana Nikolova built and led the event business across the digital economy, AI, defence, cybersecurity, energy, fintech and the future of work. Capital is her employer and her track record — it is not a Pontis client, shareholder or partner, and its audience is not a Pontis asset.
There is no team page yet. We will not publish profiles we have not agreed with the people concerned, so that page follows when there is something accurate to show. The same rule applies to partners, members and clients: no name, logo or endorsement appears on this site without permission from both sides.
What is here is what we can evidence today — one gathering with published outcomes, and a co-founder with two decades of convening behind her. The seven domains are a thesis about where coordination is required, not a claim about programmes already running.
Bring us a concrete use case, a market failure or a capability gap. We will help define the context, the stakeholders and the format needed to move it towards a decision.
For problem owners, problem solvers, capital providers and market standard-setters.