The FINANCIAL — Launching a bank with USD 500 capital and turning it into the country’s leading bank worth USD 2.5 billion in assets – is the success story of Georgian businessman Mamuka Khazaradze. His story breached borders and attracted the interest of the global business community that gathers at the EY World Entrepreneur Award. Khazaradze, head of TBC Group, represented Georgia at the “EY World Entrepreneur of the Year 2015” event, the annual awards ceremony which took place in Monte Carlo.
EY first launched the annual award ‘EY Entrepreneur of the Year’ in the U.S. fifteen years ago. They reveal the world’s best entrepreneurs.“Entrepreneurs make a difference. They not only have great ideas, but also the drive to make them a reality. They use their fresh thinking and hard work to create positive social change – bringing new concepts and products to the market, and creating jobs and wealth,” says the EY website.
It was the first time that Georgia has participated in the event. Last year a competition took place in Georgia where a panel of international judges revealed Mamuka Khazaradze as the winner. He was given the opportunity to represent Georgia at the annual world event. This year’s event was held in Monaco, and the representatives of 65 countries attended it. All of them were originally winners in their respective home countries. Prominent people who had actually changed the global economy, its mentality and structure with their inventions and success, attended the event. Over the course of the week, participants of the event had the chance to intermingle. Khazaradze attracted huge attention from leading media sources, the BBC, CNBC, Reuters, the FT and others. “It was a big opportunity to present our country on a global level. They were surprised that despite the existing difficulties we have still managed to maintain a positive trend,” Mamuka Khazaradze, Head of TBC Group, told The FINANCIAL.
“I think my achievement was changing the mentality – that it is possible to start a business and succeed with no initial ground. Maybe I appeared in the right place at the right time. However, the whole environment was not very good, not like it is in developed countries. Even now, the businesses that we are establishing are starting from point zero. However, I am optimistic that all these businesses will be quite successful in several years’ time. I actually like building businesses from scratch as the ground is always very important. Its further development requires only technical support,” said Khazaradze.
Khazaradze’s entrepreneurial streak began before the fall of the Soviet Union. As soon as individuals were allowed to own private entities during perestroika, he started his own business. It was hard at first because he did not have capital or connections, but he came up with an idea that required little investment: an art gallery. Although he didn’t make significant profits, Khazaradze gained a wealth of experience in running a business, and established connections with business people.
With TBC Bank, Khazaradze realized that for it to succeed, the Bank had to be 100% transparent, and run by young managers who would be totally dedicated to the institution and could grow with it. Khazaradze believes his management team, which has remained with the Bank from the very beginning, is a key contributor to its success.
TBC Bank is Georgia’s only leading financial institution to have been established solely by Georgian shareholders. In 2014, the Bank raised USD 256m when it listed on the London Stock Exchange, the second Georgian bank to do so. It had more than 2,800 employees at the end of 2014.
Khazaradze had many meetings with representatives of the world leading business community. He found it interesting as he heard lots of innovative and interesting ideas. “Like in any other sector, in business revolutionary changes are constantly taking place. It was good that we became a part of these processes. It is important to listen to these ideas directly from their creators rather than hear about them through the mass media.”
The PM of Monaco hosted the Georgian delegation in his residence. Khazaradze met with the Minister of Finance of Monaco, the Founder of Starbucks and other prominent businessmen and founders of leading funds. “I also met the Founder of the Abraaj Fund – one of the most influential and famous funds in the world. After our conversation he expressed his interest in Georgia and plans to visit our country this autumn. If such a big fund becomes interested in Georgia, other positive and important changes will definitely take place.”
“This was a good space for sharing ideas and listening to each other. This is exactly what is lacking in Georgia. The EY annual event is a place where businesses are not competing with each other over their respective volume of balance or profit. It is a place for sharing innovative ideas and influence with the business community surrounding you,” Khazaradze said.
The EY awards, called the ‘Oscars of Business’, showed Khazaradze that despite the recent attempts to promote our country, Georgia still needs to do more in this direction. “I found that many business representatives are not aware of the achievements we have gained during recent years. All the statistical data of our country, regarding the low level of corruption, simplicity of doing business and other achievements, surprised them. They still associate Georgia with a post-Soviet country, with conflict zones. All these messages have underlined the importance of promoting our country. The whole business community is looking for a good environment, free of corruption, and other hampering factors. Georgia really meets all of these demands, in addition, we have a positive GDP growth, which is rare among other post-Soviet states”.
Sharing values in terms of social responsibility is the main challenge not only for Georgian but also for foreign businesses, said Khazaradze. “The modern business community realized that capitalization of the people surrounding you is of significant importance. It is important that all the people surrounding any company should realize that they are part of the business. The involvement of all participants makes everyone oriented on results. Everyone realised that success is built on customers. If they desert you, you will be out of the game. So, the involvement of customers in your business, in line with a social responsibility campaign, is the main challenge for businesses. Our team has been planning this campaign in Georgia for a long time. So, at this event we found out that it was an issue on the daily agendas of many other businesses as well. The principle of sharing values is the key point for any business regardless of its destination,” Khazaradze told The FINANCIAL.
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