Zoran Runic was born on May 6, 1970 in Sarajevo.

He started playing chess at the age of 13 in chess club "Novi Grad", and a year later he moved to chess club "Sarajevo" where his coach became Zlatko Basagic, one of the best in the former Yugoslavia.

For five years he successfully performed for the Sarajevo Chess Club as a junior.

After the war, he had a success and the title of International Master in 2000, and that year he played for the BiH national team at the Olympics in Istanbul.

He was the winner of many tournaments (over 150). The most important were the International Championship of Montenegro 2001, Open Ljubljana 2005, Open Zupanja 2014, Open Travnik 2017, Open Bosnjaci 2020, Open Medjugorje 2019, Open Bosnia 2021, etc.

He has two norms for GM and he has been FIDE coach since 2016.