Resilience and hope: Building a business in Ukraine
A few weeks ago I was privileged to be able to interview Alina Golubieva (pictured), who has spent the last four years establishing an insurance broking business in Kyiv. The interview was published in Insurance Post and they have been kind enough to allow me to publish it here so that more people can read it as it tells a powerful story of how resilience and hope are so much part of the Ukrainian DNA. The full interview can be downloaded at the bottom of this page.
It goes without saying that the war has hugely disrupted business in Ukraine, as Alina explained to me:
“We had a few clients in Kharkiv, we had clients in Kherson and in Mykolaiv, which wasn’t invaded, but still badly affected. And we had a lot of clients with employees in Mariupol as well. So basically, they relocated to either other parts, or we just saw the numbers there drop drastically.
“So, for example, one of our clients, they had about like 600 people in Kharkiv. Now it is only 50 people and 200 people are in other parts of Ukraine. Some of the people are relocated outside of Ukraine, but the war affected business immensely.
“There were layoffs. Some businesses couldn’t survive, because it affected them so much. And a lot of businesses now are moving their hubs outside of Ukraine, so they can support the business and support Ukrainians who want to relocate and still work for that company.”
You can read how this impacted her business and her predominantly female staff and how they have re-established a physical presence in Kyiv in a co-working office (see picture below). In a typical show of Ukrainian defiance the office complex is symbolically named Перемога (Peremoha) which means Victory in Ukrainian.
David Worsfold 