IAN BORDEN
Nationality: Canadian.
Age: 43.
Position: Vice president of McDonald’s in Eastern Europe, general manager of McDonald’s Ukraine.
Length of time in Ukraine: Four years.
Tips for succeeding in Ukraine: “Be open to doing things differently. Patience is important, not overreacting. If you can’t manage stress, you’ll have difficulties here because there are lots of surprises. Leverage the talent and knowledge of people who are working with you, because they know the country better than any foreigner ever will. Try not to do things like you would in Canada or in the U.S.”
When asked to summarize doing business in Ukraine in one word, Ian Borden thinks just for a second, and then says decisively: “exciting.”
“Stresses are different here,” said the general director of McDonald’s, the biggest fast food chain in Ukraine with 71 restaurants. “If you are managing a business in Ukraine, stresses don’t necessarily come from your business, but external influences you can’t control.”
In spite of all the challenges, McDonald’s restaurants in Ukraine are among the busiest in the world.
“When I came to Ukraine, the restaurant at Kyiv’s Vokzal train station was the fourth-busiest McDonald’s in the world, and now it is the second,” says Borden, who came to head McDonald’s in Ukraine back in January 2008.
Borden’s career did not kick off the way it’s portrayed in McDonald’s job commercials. A Canadian with a background in finance, he did not start at the very bottom of the food chain in the company, but as an accounting manager.
The real challenge started just three years after he joined McDonald’s in Canada in 1994. Borden was invited to work in the newly launched Russian department. Eleven years on, he moved over to neighboring Ukraine. The country was not completely new to him.
“I knew Ukraine because I’ve been to Ukraine many times when I lived in Russia. But whenever you go to a new job, especially in a new place with new people, you are a bit nervous,” says Borden.
Apart from watching Ukraine’s office, he also oversees 10 neighboring countries as vice president of the corporation’s east division.
He speaks of the two sides of Ukraine that he sees. One is a country with tremendous potential, the sixth-largest country in Europe in terms of population. The other side is challenges, like low per capita income, corruption and “a legal system that doesn’t always protect investors.”
“Everybody who works in business in Ukraine and understands the potential of the market is frustrated because we don’t see the improvements happening as quickly as we would like. Therefore our businesses grow not as fast as they could and we invest less money than we could,” Borden says.
Speaking about valuable experience that he has had while working in Ukraine, Borden refers to the proverbial phrase: “Experiences that don’t kill us make us stronger.”
Indeed, the performance of McDonald’s in Ukraine is strong. Eight domestic restaurants are firmly ranked amid the top 100 busiest ones in the world out of the chain’s total 33,000. The company employs 7,000 people in Ukraine.
If there is anything that upsets Borden, it’s how undeveloped the fast food market is in Ukraine. He craves competition. “When you don’t have competition in the market it’s harder, because it means that you have to push yourself on your own. Sometimes it’s easier to be pushed by others,” Borden admits.
Borden himself goes to a McDonald’s restaurant almost every day, mostly to have coffee. He likes double cheeseburgers and french fries, but his personal number one meal in McDonald’s is breakfast of eggs and bacon.
Most frequently Borden visits the McDonald’s on Kyiv’s Moskovska Square. He says it is a choice of convenience, but claims that all 24 restaurants in Kyiv are his favorite. He says the capital can easily double the number, but only one McDonald’s is set to open next year.
Borden says his wife and two sons like Kyiv as a city. “It’s green and quite easy to get around. As a foreigner it is quite easy to live in Kyiv,” he says. hinting that he could stay much longer.
Kyiv Post staff writer Olga Rudenko can be reached at [email protected].
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