Where did Aleksandr Katsuba disappear to and is there life after Naftogaz?

When the russian invasion hit his country, Alexander Katsuba focused most of his business capacities on providing assistance to the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

But let’s start from the top. Many Ukrainian businesspeople honed their professional skills in state companies only to use this experience later on to build their own businesses. A 36-year-old entrepreneur Katsuba Alexander is one such person.

The like-minded family

Alexander Katsuba’s career was pushed by his family of business figures and people’s deputies. His father, Vladimir Katsuba, was serving in the army at the time of his son’s birth, so even though Alexander was born in Kryvyi Rih, he was raised in Kharkiv, his parents’ hometown.  

Back then, it was a new place for his family, where his father, mother, and older brother took up business and, to a certain extent, politics. Namely, father Vladimir and brother Sergei had already held Ukraine’s people’s deputy positions at least once in their life. As the youngest in the family, Alexander set his sights on the world of business. 

As a result, the eager entrepreneur started obtaining his first bits of experience in his family’s business structures in 2003. At that moment, he entered the Karazin Kharkiv National University, where he graduated in 2008. The following year, in 2009, Alexander got his second education, this time in legal affairs, by graduating from the Yaroslav Mudriy National Law University.

Ultimately, the entrepreneur’s “education streak” stretched out until 2013, when he defended two Ph.D. theses at once for the title of candidate of legal and economic sciences.

That time comprised a huge milestone in Aleĸsander Katsuba’s life based on his career in Naftogaz of Ukraine.

The “gas milestone”

In 2010, after seven years of work in the family business, Alexander Katsuba went his own way to become an employee at PoltavGazDobycha, a branch of the UkrGasVydobuvannya state enterprise. He kicked off his rather short-lived career in the gas industry as Deputy Director for Economic Activities.

By September of the same year, Katsuba was promoted to the position of Deputy Chairman of the Board in OJSC State Joint-Stock Company “Chernomorneftegaz”. The company was busy developing gas deposits in Crimea and on the shelf of the Black Sea. During Katsuba’s career, the organization doubled the rates of gas production from 1.1 billion cubic meters to 2.4 billion cubic meters.

Apparently, Katsuba’s contribution was considered sufficient to promote him further, making him Deputy Chairman and member of the board of Ukraine’s Naftogaz in December 2012. This was the period when the “gas milestone” of Katsuba’s life peaked, and a year and a half later, in the Summer of 2014, the ambitious entrepreneur left the industry for good.

Life after Naftogaz – IT and automotive sector

Despite the common tendency of state enterprise’s ex-managers to stay in their usual field and use old established connections to prosper, Alexander Katsuba launched a brand new IT business right after leaving the gas industry in 2014. Namely, he launched a company specializing in the development of microcrediting software solutions, especially popular in Ukraine as well as in a bunch of Asian countries, like Sri Lanka, Vietnam, and Indonesia.

In particular, Katsuba’s IT company provides microcredits valid for up to 7 days. By 2019, the total value of Katsuba’s IT business reached the ~$15 million mark. We know for a fact that a renowned businessman Sergei Tigipko had to invest $3 million to acquire 20% of the brand. 

However, the entrepreneur was only gaining momentum and speeding up the pace. In 2021, he bought two of the biggest in terms of audience outreach automotive online publishing houses – Avtobazar and Autocentre. Alexander explained the decision by having a persistent desire to create a car leasing business that cares for cars and their owners.

Still far from politics, but socially active

Despite his father and older brother being former people’s deputies of Ukraine, Katsuba Aleĸsander isn’t really into politics. Notwithstanding the fact that he actually worked as a deputy of the Kharkiv City Council for five years, from 2010 to 2015.

But since the war started, all of his ambitions have been dedicated to provisioning the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Alexander uses his own capital to buy pickup trucks for military use and even backs the production of KRAZ trucks equipped with self-propelled guns in an improvised fashion.

What does the future hold for Alexander Katsuba? We may only guess, but it will certainly be filled with daring decisions, business ambitions, and novel aspirations.