«You can always find talent for your company but not last year». Jesper Lindholt, CEO Livatek, talks hiring IT specialists, Danish culture, and 15 years living in Ukraine
Author — Svitlana Tuchynska
Jesper Lindholt has been based in Ukraine for more than 15 years. He is a CEO and founder of Livatek, a company offering software development from its office in Kyiv to clients in Northern Europe. Known in the expat and volunteer community as a Ukrainian patriot from Denmark, he has been fundraising for the Ukrainian military in the East, and doing other volunteer work.
An economist by training, he started as a developer back in the 1980s, worked in several telecom companies, as well as managed his own businesses.
Jesper spoke to DOU on Zoom from his office in Kyiv, sharing thoughts on the challenges of hiring in IT, and lessons from his decades of experiences in the world of technology.
On Ukraine in 1990s: “The complete absence of the free market”
— When did you move to Ukraine?
I first visited Ukraine in 1995 when I came as a Team Leader for the Agiplan. I am an economist by training and I worked in Russia, Kazakhstan and a little bit in Uzbekistan before I came to Zaporizhzhya in 1995. My job was to create a consulting company for the European Union to help small and medium businesses in Zaporizhzhya find foreign partners. I was doing the same in Almaty and Tashkent before coming to Ukraine. We were consulting local businesses on how to approach foreign partners for sales and for investments. But there was no small and medium business in Zaporizhzhya back then. It was only very big business, bigger than anything I have seen before.
So much of the economy was based on five plants - the Zaporizh stal, ferosplavy, the car factory among them. And all of them had not developed in the last 50 years because they have been in the protective markets. That made a big impression on me. The complete absence of the free market. I got married in Zaporizhzhya and with my wife we moved to Denmark where we had two daughters. And then in 2006 I had an offer to work in Ukraine from Kring East, a Danish company which was buying software development services to re-selling it to clients in Denmark. I said to my wife - why don't we try to give our daughters that dimension also, because it's a strength to be dual in languages and to be bicultural in mind. It was an adventure, on behalf of our children. I was responsible for the Ukrainian subsidiary. I took that small business and converted it to a standalone company with its own employees and own customers. And I have been in Ukraine for 15 years since then.
— You soon left this company and opened your own business, called Kuadriga. What was it doing?
Services were similar to what we are doing today in Livatek. We had 100 employees. The idea came up, working for another company and I thought that I could do this myself. I found the co-invest and we found the company together.
— You managed many companies before starting your own. What lessons and experiences from working as a hired employee you used for starting your own company?
If you feel that you are working for the objectives of others, you are probably not doing your best. To run a company successfully your employees should make your objectives their own. In my career as an employee, I could see how much more productive I was and how much more fun I had when I felt the objectives of the company were also mine.
On culture: “If you start with trustthen chances are that you will get something positive and that will create more value”
— What were the biggest challenges you faced in strategic planning, and technical management? What is the secret to being successful?
Some people would call us at Livatek outstaffing. Other people would call it outsourcing. What we do is we find people, we hire people and put them to work for companies in the West. But we do that for companies that would not be able to do that on their own. And we hire people who probably would not be so good at working for Western companies on their own. And the big thing is trust, because we are trusted on both sides. Be they Dutch, or German, or Danish clients - they talk to me, somebody from their own tribe. If you start with trust in each other then chances are that you will get something positive and that will create more value. They could start with mistrust and thinking - oh, those Ukrainians are trying to cheat me, I know they are stealing bicycles in Europe and getting them to Ukraine, or whatever.
At the practical level - we try to grow our business. And we could not grow our business if we controlled everything. I cannot control everything. So I have to trust that the people will work well together. To do that sometimes I give advice on what kind of culture to build inside the team, what kind of processes and tools to have in the team. So we are like the consulting company in getting the team to work well. If we can do that - then we can grow. And since the clouds have started lifting from the pandemic we have grown from 30 to 50 people, and we have another 30 open positions. So in the end of this we will triple in size in one year.
— Hiring is probably the key for any successful business. What is the secret to finding the right people?
We can be a nice place to work, pay salaries on time, not to cheat you, have nice coffee and nice offices when people need offices, and generally treat you with respect. That's one thing. Another thing is - meaning in what I do. Why do I go to work? Why do I get up in the morning to work on this product? You only get that by understanding the product and what it does to other people. And only our clients can come with that. So we are successful in this by making it clear to our clients that if they want the best talent here they need to open up, they need to tell the full story and they need to trust their team members. And when you are treated with trust your mind opens and you are ready to take responsibility and give it all you have. You are ready to work 10 hours instead of 8 hours. Not because somebody is yelling at you. But because you are engaged. So we try to create that engagement, as a way for our guys to create the most value and therefore have the most inspiring careers. We sometimes say that we are big enough to pay on time and small enough to care.
— How is hiring in Ukraine different from hiring in Western Europe?
The dynamics are the same. And the dynamics right now is that the world is screaming for IT talent. At the same time we had a pandemic and everybody has been treated rather similarly in most countries. We have not seen many companies that have been laying off lots of people in IT. Most people have been working from home. Working from home is very comfortable and it gives you this nice feeling - hmm, that this company lets me sit at home and I still get this nice salary, why would I go look for another job? And that happens in all countries. If you know the game of musical chairs - the music stops and you have to take the chair - it's usually the game in IT, that all people often get up and take another chair. You can always find talent for your company. But that has not been the case in the last year. Everybody has just been sitting in their own chairs - no, no I am not going anywhere!
In Western Europe it meant that they cannot find any people. And also in Western Europe you are not used to head hunt IT people. And we are head hunting here. And most people we talk to say - noo, I am all perfectly fine. But listen, listen! We are a small company, we are Danish, the boss sits down the hall, the door is open, we have a nice atmosphere and we have clients on the missions. So you only join us if you are ready to join that mission. Okay, that's unusual talk for IT people. We treat them like adults. And that makes a difference. But other than that people are looking for the same thing, and I don't think that all employers in Ukraine know that - that you also have to hire for meaning. And the best people will be asking you - why should I be doing this?
— What are the challenges of having a remote team in IT and how can they be addressed?
Before the pandemic all employees were working from our offices. It is so much more difficult to create trust if you don't see each other. And our job is also more difficult, because we are here to create that trust. We have to do different online events with the team, to create that trust. But the biggest problem in working from home I think is for people who are early in their careers. Who are you going to learn from? You don't learn from the Zoom meeting. You have to be watching what the other guys do, what the seniors are doing. Why is he thinking like this? Why did he go to the corner and think for half an hour, then come back and say - aha! You need role models and you don't find role models in Zoom. That's the biggest problem and the long term concern that I have.
Jesper with Livatek team on summer teambuilding
On Ukrainian IT: “One out of ten will only hear freedom and not responsibility”
— Can we lose our competitive advantage if the salaries continue to grow?
I think that people get the salaries they deserve. Because there is a market, so there is the demand and supply. So people get high salaries because they generate high value. If it gets too high - well, then the marker is not going to pay it. But you are right - there is a limit to how far you can squeeze it. And the higher you get the more prepared you should be that suddenly you are too expensive. Because it could be temporary.
I remember we were saying the same thing ten year ago - that the salaries in IT are too high. But I think it's an indication that Ukrainian developers are becoming more competitive, that they understand the need more and more and therefore they can create more value. On the other side - IT continues to be so much higher paying than any other sector. And it's based on meritocracy - your merits, not who you know. And that is enormously appealing, because the rest of society is much less like that. So there is no limit to the people who will float in IT.
— Do you think Ukrainian programmers have a different mentality from their colleagues in other countries? What are their pros and cons?
We have a term we call freedom with responsibility. That means nobody will breathe down your neck as long as you deliver. We are not going to control every minute of every day. We trust you to be doing the thing. And as long as you do that we are not going to mess with you. And I see when we hire people we know what to look for. But maybe one out of ten does not understand that. One out of ten will only hear freedom and not responsibility. And I can see that from the industry that many places you at the long tables, where they monitor your inbox, your backlog, and output, when you log on, when you long off, and so we tie you to the table. If that is what you grew up in then your mind will be like that. If they don't control me - I have freedom. And I see that as a difference. Because from the Danish perspective it is much more part of the Danish culture, saying freedom with responsibility.
— But how to detect these people at the stage of hiring? Maybe you ask some specific questions or give some tests?
Past performance is the best predictor of future performance. So how a person has previously worked tells a lot about the person's attitude to work. In an actual interview, I look very much at how the person behaves when we talk about the role. Is the candidate leaning into the meeting and examining ways of doing the work? Or is he or she trying to impress me by saying how easy it will be?
— You mention that freedom with responsibility is part of Danish culture. What else is important in Denmark in general and work ethics in particular that you would like to see in Ukraine?
There are some objective differences in working life. In Denmark, the working week is 37 hours including lunch. So typically, people come to work at 8:30 and go home at 16:30 - Fridays at 13:30. And still on average, I think, they probably end up being as productive as the typical Ukrainian working from 9-18 every day. Some say that ethics are about what you do when nobody is not looking. That also applies to work.
On life in Ukraine: “There is usually a solution to every problem - and that it is not always the obvious one”
— What pros and cons do you see in living in Ukraine?
My home country is very-very predictable. It has a lot of security factors for catching you which are non-existent in Ukraine. So if you are smart and strong, and if you like adventure, then Ukraine is a great place. Adventure - is the real reason why I stayed here, because I had no idea what would happen every day. And the questions that I get, the kind of challenges that I get are so different from anything I would experience back home. And I have a feeling that I can do something here that is special. If I were back home there would be ten like me, or a thousand like me. But here I am special, here I can make a difference.
One of my favorite sayings is that in Ukraine nothing is possible - but everything is possible. Waking up in Kyiv is like going into yet another quest room with riddles and challenges. The thing with quest rooms is that you know there is a solution. And there is a solution to all problems in Ukraine. I am not talking about easy solutions like giving bribes. But noticing from more than 15 years here that there is usually a solution to every problem - and that it is not always the obvious one. Just like in the quest room.
— Is not lack of predictability at the same time a disadvantage of living in Ukraine?
Yes. Life is not always fair in Ukraine. Also, the lack of a social system is a real downside. The Ukrainians are not being treated fairly. But Ukrainians have a choice. You choose yourself. You choose your own politicians. And if you have corrupt politicians maybe it's because you don't care enough about who you vote for. I live a privileged life, but when I look around I see the challenges that other people have, especially when I go outside of Kyiv. And if you look at people who are living in villages, doing subsistence farming to survive. And we are in Europe. And to a large extent it's the matter of distribution of wealth, and also to the way that the country has been managed for the benefit of the few.
Jesper on Vyshyvanka day
— You comment on Ukrainian political events for the Danish media. How do the people in Denmark view Ukraine?
I was working here for maybe five years and I still had this cloud over my eyes. And it was not until at least 5 years in the country until I realized how damaging the unholy alliance between big business and politicians have been to the country. How intervienen the lives of the oligarchs with politics and how much they were influencing. It has been poisonous to the way the society has been developing and it has been pressing down on the development of the society. I remember being here in the mid 1990-s, you looked everywhere and people were budding privatisation coupons that were not allowed to be purchased. You were not allowed to trade them and it was still happening for tiny amounts of money, and they were just being bought up and then ended up in the hands of then would become oligarchs, who bought up huge chunks of the economy for nothing.
And I blame the America for that, because that model is what works in Poland, and in the other Eastern European countries after the collapse of the Soviet Union, they did prvatistion like this by giving our coupons and then by creating investment companies who would then be buying stocks and those companies would be sending skilled managers to the companies remodelling them. That worked well. And they were eager to do the same with former Soviet countries, I knew some American lawyers who were working on this project - it just had to happen fast, they wanted to dismantle communism and do it really quick. And everybody was in because the people got something out of it, and those in power got something out of it. All of them, all Ukrainian oligarchs whose names you will not mention in your paper were part of it.
— Wild capitalism is what they often call this stage.
Yes. But in the West there is opportunity. In the real oligarchy there is no opportunity, as all the money floats to the top and all the sectors are controlled. There is no need for small enterprise and there is no room for small enterprise. I think IT is a spear head into the economy, IT is spreading money.
Back to what Danish people think about Ukraine - they just don't understand what is happening, the complexity of all of this. They say - why Ukraine won't just liberalise. Why can't you just open your markets completely? What's the big deal? Why are you fighting about people who sit in the Supreme Court? Why can't they be selected? Well, it's because this guy controls this guy, and that guy controls that guy. All the oligarchs and people in Parliament who usually do what they like but sometimes they would get a call and asked to vote a certain way by the oligarch who paid for their campaign.
I think there is a lot of sympathy in Western Europe for what has happened in the east of Ukraine, but also they don't understand why would not Ukrainians just get along? Sort of a naive view of - well, there must be something to both sides, because you cannot just listen to the one side. That is how I was raised - you need to listen to both sides. But in the case of Ukraine - there is an obvious and clear aggressor and a completely innocent country and people on the other side. When I am back home and people tell me we need to listen to both sides I just want to punch them in the face. Because they don't understand that they are manipulated.
— You have been awarded numerous awards and medals from the Ukrainian government, including "For Humanitarian Participation in the Antiterror Operation", "For Support to the Armed Forces of Ukraine", "For Sacrifice and love to Ukraine". Tell me more about these awards.
I think it was completely undeserved because there were so many people doing a lot of useful work… In 2014 I was spending a lot of time on Maidan. And my head was blowing from the bust of democracy that was coming out. And when the war started I had friends who went to the front. My mother told me - you are not going there! Okay, I could not go. But then I decided I will do what I can. I raised money in the foreign community here just before Ilovaisk. I collected money to buy three ambulances that we gave to the hospital in Bakhmut and to the army. Later, in cooperation with the Ukrainian NGO Initiativa E+, we brought more than 50 cars over from Denmark and Germany that were given to army units in the red zone for picking one wounded on the front line. They still don't have enough of those, most of them are for driving on nice asphalt during the parade. So we drove all the 50 cars there.
I am a member of a worldwide NGO for professionals called Rotary. In the Kyiv Multinational Rotary Club, we put together a project and purchased 500 computers from NATO. Those computers we put in 50 schools along the contact line in Donbas. Again in cooperation with Initiativa E+.
My first award was in 2015 from the Church. Another one from the Defence ministry in ‘16, and it was just given to me by the people I work with because I could not go to the Ministry for the security reasons they had then. And the last one was from the president. It was given to me in ‘17 by a high ranking officer in a ceremony at the House of Officers with another 30 or so volunteers. It was a special day to all of us. It seemed that I knew half of the people in the room.
— From your LinkedIn profile it is clear that you pay a lot of attention to education. Are you currently self-educating in any area?
Honestly, right now my main focus is to become better at making beer. I brew beer as a hobby and I am experimenting in my dacha. I want to make the best beer the person can make for themselves. There is a lot of competition in Ukraine and beer is getting really good. But actually with a colleague at work we participated in the first home brewing competition in the country and we won the third prize for a pumpkin beer.