Journalist Raluca Michailov is the founder of Lifetime – Collectible Watch Stories Magazine and holds the licence for the publication of Forbes in Romania.

1. Describe briefly your childhood.

I had a very happy childhood in gloomy, grey, communist Romania. True – we had almost nothing, we weren’t allowed to travel anywhere outside the country, there was no TV and only propaganda. But somehow no one was depressed. And we were all playing outside a lot, reading, meeting friends, studying. Until I was 14 and capitalism came, I was actually blissfully unaware that we were so poor.

2. As a child did you have any driving ambition?

I wanted to be a brain surgeon, an astronaut, a veterinarian and a chef’s wife.

3. What is your first significant memory as a child?

My adored grandmother smiling at me with her radiant, joy-giving eyes, holding her cup of coffee in one hand and pushing my swing with the other. Love and coffee – two of the best things in life, I think.

4. Have you ever had another profession?

Before I was a magazine owner, I was a magazine writer. A journalist. Still am.

5. What made you decide to go in the direction you are currently in?

Providence. Divine intervention. My team and I – are all very talented, very driven journalists. After relaunching Forbes Romania many years ago, I founded Lifetime – Collectible Watch Stories, our beloved watch magazine that has a global, English-language edition and which, in the midst of the pandemic, made its debut in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, where it is published in German.

6. What’s the worst job you’ve had to do?

The worst thing in my career was when I held a top management position in a very big media company and I was supposed to play the corporate politics game. It ended very quickly – I was too much of an entrepreneur at heart to see so many money-losing decisions being made.

7. What’s been the hardest moment in your life so far, and how did you overcome it?

There were many – deaths of loved ones, illness, tight finances, trying to get the company off the ground and being terrorized that I would fail, crises of faith, discovering the real people behind the masks.

I always overcome with God. My faith is my biggest treasure.

8. Who has had the strongest influence on you?

God, my grandmother, my husband – for their absolutely, totally unconditional love.

9. What are you most proud of?

I am never proud (or I try not to be), I am always grateful – for my family, for being alive, for my friends that are also my family, for my business.

10. What advice would you give to a 20 something someone thinking of taking a similar path as you?

Do not fear anything and always remember that there is always a way out. God is bigger than any problems. And do not fear work – it is something to be enjoyed. Otherwise, you are missing out on one of life’s greatest pleasures – work satisfaction and personal improvement.

11. Name three things on your bucket list.

See as much of the world as I can.

Write a book.

Find wisdom.

12. Where do you think the watch industry is going to be in 10 years time?

This is hard. I have been writing about the industry for close to 20 years and I don’t think I have ever seen such a degree of confusion and so many rash, unwise decision – on all sides.

I can tell you what I hope – that people will never, ever give up on mechanical watches, that métiers d’art will flourish more and more and that the brands will finally understand their own identity, their customers and how to reach them (clue – no gauche, embarrassing paid posts).

To learn more about Raluca Michailov