Since the beginning of the invasion, most of the newly created companies in Ukraine have been managed by the founders

In Ukraine, company founders are increasingly choosing to manage their new businesses personally. Currently, the number of company directors has grown to seventy-three percent.

This is evidenced by data from the Opendatabot monitoring system.

The number of founding directors in new companies is growing. In 2017, more than 71% of owners were actively involved in management, but by 2021, this share had dropped to 64%. However, in the first year after the start of the full-scale invasion, the number of owners willing to be directly involved increased to almost 73%.

The majority of newly established companies in Ukraine have founding directors, and this trend has remained stable in recent years. In 2017, 71% of owners wanted to run the business themselves, but this number subsequently decreased, indicating a growing trust in hired managers who took on more management responsibility.

In 2022, however, the situation changed, with the share of founding directors rising to 72.6%. Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, owners have been seeking more control. It is noteworthy that the number of founding directors with smaller shares of assets (up to 5%) has decreased. These are usually hired managers who received a small share of assets as a bonus for managing the company. In 2017, there were 1.2% of them, and in 2024 their share fell to 0.4%.

At the same time, owners of large stakes (over 20%) have become more actively involved in company management. In 2017, there were more than 64% of such owners, but in 2021, this figure dropped to 59%. However, in 2024, they began to manage the business more actively again, trusting hired managers less, which led to an increase in the share of such founders to almost 69%.

In addition, 70 enterprises in the South joined theNational Cashback program. In total, more than 1,000 companies and 167 individual entrepreneurs participated in the program across the country. Thus, 53 companies participate in the program in Odesa region, 12 in Mykolaiv region, and only 5 in Kherson region.

In addition, there are 1.3 million registered company charters in Ukraine, of which 61% are publicly available and can be viewed in the format of scanned documents in real time. Checking the relevance of the charter is important before starting cooperation with new partners. For example, you should pay attention to the powers of the director, as the charter may contain restrictions. If the director exceeds his or her powers, the agreement may be invalid.

In the first eight months of 2024, almost 194 thousand new individual entrepreneurs were registered. In the south of the country, more than 19 thousand new entrepreneurs opened a sole proprietorship. Since the beginning of the year, 193,192 new sole proprietorships have been registered, which is higher than before the start of the full-scale war, when 186,144 new businesses were opened over the same period.

For example, 5096 sole proprietorships were opened in Mykolaiv region, 12839 in Odesa region, and 1746 in Kherson region. After a sharp decline at the beginning of the invasion, the number of new registrations has stabilized and has been at a stable level for the second year.

Анна Бальчінос