Morgan WilliamsPosition: Director of Government Affairs for the Washington, D.C., office of SigmaBlezyer private equity fund; president of the 200-member U.S.-Ukraine Business CouncilNationality: American from Ottawa, KansasFirst trip to Ukraine: 1992How to succeed in Ukraine: “One needs to be very committed to the cause, have lots of perseverance, be in the game for the long haul, be street smart, be flexible so when Plan A does not work one is ready to go to Plan B, then Plan C and on to Plan D and be ready for many surprises.”
Ukraine’s security is the top concern for investors and businesspeople, says Morgan Williams, the long-time president of the U.S.-Ukraine Business Council, which represents 200 members.
And the biggest threat to that security now is Russia.
That’s why Williams will not be joining other business associations – like the National Association of Manufacturers and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce – in taking out full-page advertisements to lobby against tougher sanctions against Russia.
“America should do the right thing,” said Williams, who also is the director of government affairs for the Washington, D.C. office of the SigmaBlezyer private equity fund. “When you have one country that went in and stole Crimea and has a deliberate policy of destabilizing Ukraine and other countries and have their mercenaries in Ukraine, the best thing in the long run is to support democracy, free enterprise, self-rule and territorial integrity. You see what happened when business supported (Adolf) Hitler and (Benito) Mussolini.”
Speaking his mind freely, and sometimes bluntly, is a trait Williams shares with one of his old mentors and bosses, former U.S. Senator Bob Dole, the Republican Party nominee for president in 1996.
Williams and Dole are two Kansans who met in 1962 when Williams was the Republican Party chairman in Dodge City. They stay in touch 52 years later. Williams even attended Dole’s 90th birthday party in Washington, D.C., last year.
Williams worked for Dole, or benefited from his patronage, for nearly 30 years. When Williams didn’t work directly on Dole’s staff or the Senate staff, he played key roles in many of Dole’s election campaigns or got awarded plum government appointments in their shared field of interest – agriculture.
He remains an admirer. “I learned what it meant to be a statesman,” Williams said of Dole. “He was a staunch conservative, but when push came to shove he was interested in what was best for the United States. He was a good compromiser.”
Not long after Dole lost the 1988 Republican nomination to President George H.W. Bush, Williams’ career took a different turn – as an international consultant in the agricultural industry.
The 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union opened up new opportunities. Just after Bill Clinton became president in 1993, Williams and a partner won a $49 million U.S. Agency of International Development contract to work in Russia and Ukraine. He soon realized Ukraine offered more opportunities, so he left Moscow for Kyiv in 1993 and was picked up at the train station by a longtime farmer in Ukraine, America David Sweere, and his wife.
Williams has been working on agricultural or broader economic development issues in Ukraine since then.
In 2000, through a business deal, he came in touch with Michael Bleyzer, the American investor who runs the SigmaBlezyer private equity fund. Soon William started to work for Bleyzer as a consultant.
Blezyer, he said, understood the aggressive and expansionist intentions of Russian President Vladimir Putin long ago. “Mr. Putin is coming and we need to build a wall of private enterprise and democracy around Russia, and we need to do it through the private sector,” Williams recalls Blezyer as warning. “Mr. Putin is KGB. He was humiliated by the fall of the Soviet Union and he will want to put the Russian Empire back together again.”
The warning proved prophetic — and largely unheeded in the West.
Williams used his connections to help Blezyer during the corrupt era of President Leonid Kuchma. In 2004, government officials pressured Volia Cable – in which Bleyzer invested — to take the relatively independent Channel 5 off the cable package. The TV station was owned then by the same person who owns it now – Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. Williams enlisted U.S. Sen. John McCain, then-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine John Herbst and others to persuade Kuchma to back off.
Williams joined SigmaBlezyer in 2005 and, a year later with Bleyzer’s help, set out to revamp the U.S.-Ukraine Business Council. When Williams took over as acting president, it had only eight dues-paying members; now it has 200 members and a staff of several persons.
The four-year presidency of Viktor Yanukovych proved to be a challenge for Williams as well as the rest of the business community, until the EuroMaidan Revolution intervened and sent Yanukovych fleeing to Russia on Feb. 22.
“I saw the train wreck coming, but I didn’t think it would take place until the next presidential election,” Williams said. “It was a very well-organized mafia, a totally corrupt system under Yanukovych. They were very smart and paying off a lot of people and had clever attorneys and financial advisers.”
He sees more potential in Poroshenko and Arseniy Yatsenyuk – the first fluently English-speaking president and prime minister in Ukraine’s history. The international community signaled its faith by quickly assembling almost a $20 billion aid package that comes mostly as loans.
The business lobbyist said his members want to see parliamentary elections in the autumn, tangible progress against corruption and bureaucracy and cheap loans for businesses.
The public will not be as patient as they were under Yanukovych, nor will international lending agencies, Williams warned. “Now comes the big test,” he said.
Kyiv Post chief editor Brian Bonner can be reached at [email protected]
