We’ve featured a number of high achieving entrepreneurs who are making forging business successes despite the ongoing threat to their homeland.
Oleksandr is another example of the entrepreneurial spirit flowing through his homeland.
From high-level business expos to popular TV quiz shows, LED screens are a fixture of our landscape — and Ukrainian-born CEO and entrepreneur Oleksandr Kravets is at the forefront of their development, manufacture, and supply with his company, ARENA Lux.
Kravets launched the first incarnation of ARENA in his native Kyiv in 2012, renting out high-class screen equipment for touring pop stars, theatre productions, and business events. In 2019, following a two-year stint in Hong Kong, Kravets moved the company to Zhongshan in China’s Guangdong province. Here, both he and ARENA have flourished, developing world-class facilities that produce and ship premium LED screens to companies and events all over the world whilst also facilitating the research and development of further innovative solutions.
“These technologies are the future,” Kravets explains, as enthusiastic as ever about the industry he has been a player in for more than 20 years. “And the direction I see them going — or the direction I see us leading them — is a synthesis of design technology and art.”
A scroll through ARENA’s Instagram reveals that Kravets’ dedication to producing forward-thinking LED-screen technology has attracted household names like McDonald’s and Prada, as well as global business initiatives such as Invest Saudi.
European TV shows and live events are also on ARENA’s client list, giving Kravets an eclectic and highly impressive resume.
So, how did he get here? Well, like many entrepreneurs, Kravets initially embarked on a different path:
“I enrolled on an engineering course at the Kyiv National University of Construction and Architecture,” he recalls. “Whilst there, I began working as a student-radio DJ and an events organiser. Realising that I wanted to move in that kind of direction, I dropped out of my course.”
Kravets supplemented his income by working for a local equipment-rental company, going solo with ARENA in his late twenties. By the time he moved his company east in 2017, he’d received many commendations for his event work, including from institutions such as the police and the state security service. As Kravets comes from a military family, such honours are among his proudest achievements.
Throughout his two decades of working in the LED technology sector — and his 10-plus years as the founder and CEO of a thriving company — Kravets has always credited his skills as a listener, a negotiator, and a problem solver as key to his success.
“I can hear and convey information to people in ways they understand,” he says. “I can change the direction of negotiations, bring about consensus, and in the rare situations where conflict arises, minimize negative outcomes for all participants. This particular trait is what has helped me to establish my business and go such a long way with it.”
And what of the future for this remarkable businessman? “We plan to keep increasing the capacity for us to produce LED screens,” he states. “We’ll also be studying the development of these technologies, ensuring we can continue contributing our unique innovations to them.”
According to the BBC, Ukraine could be considered the dark horse of Europe’s tech scene. It punches well above its weight when it comes to scaling global startups. Not only have the people of Ukraine continued to innovate whilst the enduring threat of Russia has loomed heavy over Ukraine’s sovereignty, but this spirit has continued even during the war.
Prior to the war, foreign investment from tech and manufacturing was flowing into the country. The question is, can Ukraine continue to attract inward investment? With the entrepreneurial spirit of individuals such as Oleksandr Kravets, there is hope.
