Haim Kapelnikov, Chief Executive Officer of Avis Ukraine, a rent a car and leasing company, believed that each business which is running during the war is a significant contribution to the Victory. This became Avis's credo during the war. For keep running the business, Avis's strategy included three important components:
The first and most important goal is keeping our employees and their families safe physically and financially. We kept all staff on board and continued to pay salaries which meant keeping the business running. For this, some weeks before the invasion, the management presented an evacuation plan for employees, which helped to keep all our staff and their families safe. Our C.E.O. Haim Kapelnikov, personally spent the first week of the war managing the evacuations of Avis employees and working out routes for evacuation, and kept in touch with everyone 24/7 with all employees during the evacuation till they arrived at a safe place. On February 26 relocation team managed to launch the operation of the company's H.Q. in Lviv and was prepared for the arrival of company employees and their families to Lviv and assist them with accommodation.
The execution of the employees' relocation and securing the safety of company data worked as planned. Despite all difficulties, Avis continued to operate at full scale, supporting our clients. Avis Ukraine H.Q. in Kyiv stayed open during the most stressful and difficult times in February and March. The office in Kyiv kept operational for several hours every day to ensure every Avis client that needs a car will get one! This action was recognized by ABG (Avis Budget Group). Avis Ukraine security officer Mr. Vladimir Nikolayevich Kravchenko was awarded ABG C.E.O award for Q1 2022 for his outstanding performance and sense of duty during the battle of Kyiv, supporting Avis's customers that needed cars for safe evacuation from Kyiv.
The second component was keeping constant contact with our customers. We have instructed the customers on how to act and what to do with cars in case of evacuation with the car or without and how to secure the car's safety. Avis Ukraine supported and facilitated evacuations, and issued online Power of attorney for cars and green card insurance, allowing customers to cross the border with Avis's cars.
The third component was to locate and save the company's fleet. After taking care of employees' safety, the company was engaged in supporting our R.A.C. and leasing customers with the maintenance of cars, managing insurance cases, evacuation, and returning cars that crossed the border back to Ukraine from all over Europe with the help of Avis international network. With the help of Avis's Woman A Team force consisting our Chief accountant, Yulia Smovzh, HR manager Tatyana Melnychenko, Marketing manager Maryna Andrushko, and others, we were able to relocate our cars and move them back from Poland to Ukraine. Some of our fleet was located on territories under Russian occupation and were damaged, destroyed, or stolen. In a couple of weeks, the company managed to geolocate it's entire fleet and continue till present days to evacuate cars from territories that the Armed Forces of Ukraine liberated.
Ensuring that the company database remains safe and updated was the main task of the Security I.T. department. We secured servers' operations and allowed remote access for company employees to continue performing their duties. The company has implemented protocols for data security and backups in several layers using cloud solutions and physical data storage in case the main servers will be damaged.
As of today, all the employees have returned to Ukraine. The Avis offices all over Ukraine are functional. Avis created a solution to guarantee company operations in times of electricity, water, and heating supply disturbance. The company has installed a powerful generator to keep the server running smoothly and supply electricity for lighting and heat in case the central heating system is shut down, so each employee can work from home remotely as well as at the office. The company has secured a shelter for the employees. According to company evacuation protocol, all employees evacuate to the shelter in case of air strike sirens. The company regularly purchases water reserves for the office and employees if water supply is disrupted.
Avis Ukraine continues following its 10 years' development strategy even during the war. We believe businesses that don't work currently are losing out on their future perspective. We believe in Ukraine's future and Victory. At the same time, the company supports the state as much as it can, including money donations, transportation means, food, medical equipment for military hospitals, and taking care of our recruited employees and their brothers in arms. Almost all company employees volunteer to support Ukraine until the Victory.
