Vladyslav Greziev, CEO of Lobby X, has been active in civil society projects since the early days of the EuroMaidan Revolution that toppled former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych from power in 2014. His crowdsourced Waze-style app tracked the movements of Berkut riot police, allowing the protestors’ self-defense units to mount a coordinated response effort.
So it’s no surprise that Lobby X is not an ordinary headhunting agency. It makes money in the same way as any other recruiting agency, charging a fee to help business fills open positions. But part of its earnings are reinvested into Ukraine by helping NGOs, ministries, and reform-focused organizations recruit specialists free of charge.
Greziev got the idea of helping reformers attract staff after regularly attending presentations given by nongovernmental organizations and social organizations like the December First Initiative. There were always smart people there drafting good policy proposals, but they could never quite explain who would implement them, he said.
“I understood that the most important thing, and the most valuable thing in the process of changing the country would be people, employees,” Greziev said.
But good specialists are hard to find, especially in a troubled economy like Ukraine’s, where many who can leave, do. The country is currently in the midst of a brain-drain crisis – it’s estimated that up to 7 percent of the country’s labor force, which had been 20 million people, has emigrated, attracted by higher salaries and better standards of living in other countries.
Plugging the drain
Lobby X’s goal is thus to tempt specialists back home to work in key sectors. No other Ukrainian recruiting agency specializes in recruiting highly skilled candidates with Western experience for reform work.
Greziev and his team worked for nine months on an entirely voluntary basis. But that wasn’t sustainable.
One option might have been grants, but instead the company opted for the social enterprise model, as “you’re more effective when you use your own resources,” Greziev said. Secondly, being entirely self-funded gives Lobby X complete independence. Currently the company employs five people full-time and 22 freelancers.
Global reach
While accessible anywhere via the web, Lobby X wants to expand its physical presence worldwide. The company will soon open an office in Warsaw, and it wants to open three more, in Moscow, New York and Toronto (where there are large communities of Ukrainian diaspora).
The project has significant grassroots support: A Ukrainian businessman in Warsaw has agreed to provide Lobby X rent-free office space, and it’s not uncommon for Ukrainians abroad to volunteer their time or expertise to help the project.
Networking is key to Lobby X’s operations. Users can alert their friends to vacancies. Its strong partnerships with international organizations provides the company with connections in cities all over the world, which can help ease its entry into the market.
However, this support has its limits, and Lobby X can’t work with everyone. Moreover, the company only works with NGOs or ministries that it believes are transparent, and fighting corruption.
This reputation is valuable. According to Greziev, “people know that our platform is the number one platform for finding opportunities to change the country, to have a real impact and… work on fascinating projects.”
Being based in Ukraine is also critical.
Providing opportunities
Lobby X never attempts to guilt-trip Ukrainian diaspora into returning, as this would be both ineffective and counter-productive. The key is to provide interesting opportunities to interesting people. To get the right people, Lobby X needs to show there are real opportunities to make a real difference.
But patriotism has its limits.
The method can be effective for headhunting specialists, but it won’t be able to reverse the overall brain drain trend which, according to Alexander Clarkson, a lecturer in European studies at King’s College London, is an unavoidable byproduct of Ukrainians’ increased mobility. To prevent people from moving abroad, the Ukrainian government would have to “cross the threshold from democratic to authoritarian,” Clarkson said.
Ukrainian businesses will not be able compete with wages in Poland or Germany in the near term, but it may not be necessary, Clarkson said. General improvements in infrastructure and the standard of living will do a lot to keep workers in Ukraine, he said. And the specialists that Lobby X brings back will be working directly on these issues.
One thing the government could do, according to Clarkson, is to ease restrictions on dual citizenship. It is illegal for Ukrainians to get dual citizenship, and many Ukrainians who work abroad end up either giving up their original citizenship, or refraining from voting or otherwise participating in Ukrainian politics so as to escape the attention of authorities.
Growing fast
Lobby X’s success comes with challenges. Its flow of job candidates has doubled over the past year. The company has had to order its own customer relations management system, where before Excel and Google Drive were sufficient.
The next challenge will be to grow fast in Warsaw. To get up and running, Lobby X will need to develop connections among businesses and NGOs.
But the company fully anticipates success, which it will then aim to repeat in New York, Toronto, and Moscow.
“Now we can see the dynamics,” Greziev said, “and understanding that we will refresh the whole of this sector of government management with great new Ukrainians, we’re working to foster this process.”
