A former banker, Markstedt loves his work, his family and even gets a chance to socialize here and there as the president of the EBA.
Car in Ukraine and president of the European Business Association. “I shouldn’t eat for an hour.” Actually, it wasn’t a joke: the dentist had prevented him from enjoying one his favorite restaurants, Le Grand Cafe, to the full extent.
The mellow Markstedt wears many hats. A former banker in Sweden, he was also involved with the tourism industry before he got involved in the rental car business. His laid-back personality hides a strong devotion to both his work and his family. As he sipped a Perrier (Hr 20), he decided upon a business lunch of tomato soup and sauteed rainbow trout with rice in a beurre blanc (Hr 87).
Blazing Trails
Markstedt is an Avis trailblazer. He started the first Avis franchise in Estonia, in 1992. “We were the first self-drive company” in that Baltic country, he says.
From Estonia he expanded, establishing the Avis Rent-a-Car branches in Lithuania and Belarus, in 1993. At the time, Markstedt says, Belarus had good prospects: Alexander Lukashenko hadn’t yet put a vice-grip on the country. Since then, however, he’s sold the Belarus Avis franchise to its employees.
Ukraine was the last European country without Avis representation, which didn’t get here until 1997.
One would assume that renting out cars for short-term personal use would represent any rental company’s core business, but Markstedt says that’s not true.
“When we came to Ukraine, we focused on leasing from the beginning,” he explains. “Ninety-four percent of our business is related to leasing and leasing services. Car rentals are only four percent of our business.”
Anybody who’s lived in Ukraine, and particularly in Kyiv, knows that drivers here are a class unto themselves. Indeed, the accident rate is high. That’s due to “a combination of very poor-disciplined driving,” he says, “especially [among] young people and also oligarchs that feel they can drive however they want.” Then there’s old Soviet-made cars, poor road conditions and a lack of safety-related things – like snow tires – that are common in the West.
Why did he tackle the complicated Ukrainian market? A businessman’s understanding that without risk, there’s no reward. It came down to “if we don’t take this, we will lose it,” he says.
Markstedt first came to Ukraine in 1990, and met a “very nice girl” who in 1997 became his wife. The couple has a three-year-old son, who has joined Markstedt’s three sons from a previous marriage. The oldest of these also works at Avis in Kyiv.
“My three and a half-year-old son, he speaks Russian, of course, but being a little child he doesn’t speak very clearly, and I have very big problems understanding what he’s saying. So now I’m speaking English with him and my wife.”
Markstedt pauses.
“The worst thing is also not [being able to] speak good Russian when my son listens to me when I talk,” he says, hoping the tyke won’t pick up his language habits.
Eternal Optimist
Markstedt also wears the hat of EBA president, which involves quite a bit of socializing.
“The main goal of EBA is to create a more positive and a better business environment,” he explains. “[We work] with questions and problems that now hinder developing businesses.”
That’s easier said than done, of course.
“There are the same problems now as there were before, [like] unclear legislation,” he says.
There’s “political uncertainty in terms of what will be the rules tomorrow – today we have one rule [and] one [piece of] legislation, while in one year we have another,” he explains.
Despite all the negatives, Markstedt’s glass is more than half full.
“I’m very optimistic,” he says, listing the positives that have occurred in Ukraine recently: a civil court, a commercial court, new leasing legislation, a new tax system, and more. “You can always say that many of those [laws] are things that could be better… but the major changes are very positive.”
History Buff
“No,” Markstedt responds when I ask him if he has any hobbies. “I’ve never been interested in collecting stamps, football, hunting or fishing or something like that. This has been my character from the very beginning. When I started to work I spent lots of time at my work. I like it. If you are the owner of the company it’s even more interesting; you try to look at everything and follow everything,” he says. “My teacher in music said I was completely impossible to teach anything.”
But over a cappuccino (Hr 15) he admits that he’s a bit of a history buff. (One of his sons is a history teacher in Sweden.)
Markstedt starts talking about Kakhovka, a town in Kherson region. Called Gammalsvenskby in Swedish, it’s an anomaly in Ukraine for being almost entirely populated by people of Swedish descent, a product of human migrations centuries old. Markstedt says people still speak Swedish there, albeit in a very archaic form.
“History was my best subject in school but I wouldn’t say that I’m very much devoted to it – but I am interested in it,” he says as he ends his anecdote about a small piece of Nordic history in Eastern Europe.
Le Grand Cafe
4 Muzeyny Provulok, 228-7208.
Open daily from 11:30 a.m. till 11 p.m.
English-language menu: Yes.
English-speaking staff: Yes.
