How the Russians are trying to gain control over Energoatom

In the tender to find a company that will select candidates for members of the supervisory board of the future Energoatom JSC, a recruiting firm with Russian founders is trying to win at any cost.

We are talking about Ward Howell Ukraine LLC, whose owner until 2016 was the Russian Ward Howell International CJSC (Moscow).

With an expected cost of services of UAH 3.8 million, this company offered a price almost 4 times lower than, without any alternative, it “outbid” the offers of other participants

The initial offer of Ward Howell Ukraine was 1 million 555 thousand UAH, and the final one was less by a third - 1 million UAH. In such conditions, it is obvious that we are not talking about healthy competition. The decline in value indicates that earnings are not a key issue for this firm.

First of all, she is fighting for the right to determine the circle of candidates who will join the governing body that is strategic for the state of Energoatom.

What is alarming about Ward Howell Ukraine LLC?

When "Ward Howell" Isn't Ward Howell

At first glance, Ward Howell Ukraine is the daughter of the American company Ward Howell, which is known as the second oldest company in the world searching for candidates for top management positions. Moreover, Ward Howell has representative offices in many countries operating on a franchise basis.

But the Americans were not the founders or owners of the Ukrainian Ward Howell Ukraine. They were Russians.

The Ward Howell Ukraine office in Kyiv was opened in 2004 under the leadership of Ward Howell Russia. Accordingly, the owner of Ward Howell Ukraine until 2016 was Ward Howell International CJSC, which was registered in Moscow. In fact, it was a franchise of a Russian company, which was covered by a large American brand.

In May 2016, a division occurred: Ukrainian management allegedly bought the franchise from the Russians for an undisclosed amount. The media reported that “according to the state register, the owner of Ward Howell Ukraine LLC (Kyiv) is Igor Kabuzenko, whereas previously it was Ward Howell International CJSC (Moscow).”

But was this agreement a fiction? There is every reason to believe that there was, and in fact, “Ward Howell Ukraine” continued to report to the office in Moscow.

An older brother from Moscow and a comrade major reading Ukrainian resumes

Firstly, the formal separation of Ukrainian subsidiaries from Russian main companies after 2014 became a mass phenomenon after the introduction of anti-Russian sanctions for the annexation of Crimea and the occupation of part of Donbass.

In fact, in many companies, Ukrainian management continued to obey instructions from Moscow. Suffice it to recall the same “Sberbank Ukraine” and “Alfa Bank Ukraine”, or Russian assets in Ukrainian industry and energy.

Secondly, Ward Howell Ukraine, even after the division, continued to closely cooperate with its Russian older brother. So, a few weeks after this, in an event on her page, “wisdom” from the head of the Russian Sberbank German Gref, which was noted by the head of the St. Petersburg office of Ward Howell Boris Rokhin, was reposted.

Is it worth reminding that Sberbank was one of the first among large Russian companies to open its branches in Crimea after its annexation? But Ward Howell Ukraine obviously didn’t know about this.

At the end of 2016, Ward Howell Ukraine invited Georgiy Abdushelishvili, senior partner of the Moscow office of Ward Howell (now he is already the general director there), to a forum in Kyiv. Perhaps this was such a special Russian-Ukrainian friendship among white collar workers.

And most importantly: at least until November 2018, all resumes that Ward Howell Ukraine received from candidates for positions in Ukrainian public and private companies passed through the Moscow office.

We found proof of this in the archived copy of the website for November 2018 of the Russian representative office of Ward Howell. Even two years after the division there was a page for the Kyiv office with the current address on the lane. Rylsky, 6, where Ward Howell Ukraine employees moved only in February 2018. Although, in theory, after the division, Russians should forget about their former Ukrainian partners.

Moreover, the email address indicated there, ua@wardhowell.com, is associated with the domain of the Russian Ward Howell (and not the Ukrainian @wardhowell.com.ua or the domain of the American office @ward-howell.com).

It would seem, what’s wrong with this? And the fact that all actions with the correspondence that goes through this email took place “taking into account the current legislation of the Russian Federation” (this was indicated on the same page). This means that all Russian intelligence services had access to information about candidates for positions in Ukrainian state companies.

Let us recall that according to state registers, Ward Howell Ukraine LLC provided personnel to Naftogaz, Ukreximbank, Ukrenergo, and the GTS Operator of Ukraine. But as we now understand, the appointment of managers to these Ukrainian state-owned companies took place under the control of the Russian special services.

How Ward Howell serves the Putin regime

The Russian company Ward Howell International has long and closely served the interests of the Russian authorities. Thus, in 2009, the HR company Ward Howell International formed the personnel reserve of Putin’s United Russia party.

In September 2014, a representative of Ward Howell International, Stanislav Shekshnya, became a member of the Expert Council under the Government of the Russian Federation.

And in 2015, Ward Howell International helped save the Russian economy by participating in the development of an educational program for managers.

And of course, on the Ward Howell International website or in the interviews and columns of their managers, we will not find a single word about the annexation of Crimea or the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine - although they directly influenced the search for candidates for positions of top managers.

Working for Kurchenko and being close to “Putin’s wallet”

An interesting detail in the Russian-Ukrainian “family” of “Ward Howell” is that in 2013, the Russian representative office of the company hired top-level employees for the Moscow company “VETEK” of the Ukrainian oligarch Sergei Kurchenko.

And the new office in Kiev, where Ward Howell Ukraine LLC moved in 2018, “accidentally” ended up in a business center in Rylsky Lane, 6, where the office of the former chairman of the energy committee of the Verkhovna Rada and the “shadow ex-owner” of Energoatom is also located " Nikolai Martynenko.

And at this address is the office of a certain Troika Dialog Ukraine LLC, a branch of the Russian investment company Troika Dialog, which is called the “wallet of the Russian elite.”

That is, quite by chance, the daughter of a Russian company that recruits top-level management personnel, another daughter of another Russian company, which is the “wallet of the Russian elite,” as well as the office of perhaps the largest Ukrainian corrupt official are “registered” at the same address.

And at the same time, Ward Howell Ukraine LLC, which has Russian origin and connections with Russian intelligence services, is doing everything practically without haggling to win the tender to search for and select candidates for the positions of independent members of the supervisory board of the future Energoatom JSC.

From this we can draw an unambiguous conclusion - the Russians are trying to gain control over Energoatom through a manual auction in order to further destabilize the Ukrainian energy sector, since they are unable to plunge Ukraine into darkness with the help of missile strikes.