Marin County CEO with Ukraine ops pleads for stop to Russia’s move into her homeland
“The world should stop him.”
That was the plea Tuesday from a Marin County technology firm executive with personal and business ties to Ukraine, reacting to news overnight that Russian President Valdimir Putin ordered troops into breakaway provinces and recognized their independence.
That action triggered immediate sanctions from key economic powerhouse nations.
Nataliya Anon is president, CEO and founder of Svitla Systems Inc., headquartered in Corte Madera. With revenues last year of $44 million and estimated 2022 revenues of $60 million, the firm started with software-development teams in Ukraine and has expanded worldwide.
“I'm very concerned. We've extended our offer to relocate employees to the western and southern areas of Ukraine, or enable them to move to Poland or Montenegro,” she told the Business Journal Tuesday.
Last week she told the Journal that Svitla (“bright” in Ukrainian) had 500 employees in five Ukrainian cities, including the capital, Kyiv. The company has more than 800 workers around the globe: Costa Rica, Mexico, Montenegro, Poland and 20 in the U.S.
Feedback from workers there so far is that the office is still up and running. She added the firm had five new people in the Ukraine to serve a client.
Personally, she has close members of her family here in the U.S., but cousins and other relatives are still in Ukraine.
Calling Putin’s actions “abhorrent,” she stated her belief that Russia troops were already in Ukrainian provinces, which the insurgents call Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic, well before the middle-of-the-night announcement by the Russian leader.
Actions he has taken already make it clear, Anon said, that, "Putin is a maniac and a dictator who has lost his marbles."
She is glad to see banks’ freezing Russian assets as well as countries’ not allowing travel from Russia to the United Kingdom and France and prohibiting Russian young people from continuing to attend schools in Europe.
"These days it is so critical to see what this situation means for Europe as well as for global security when it comes to preserving world order,” Anon said.
She added, "It's hard to believe this is happening.”
Germany froze the $11 billion Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project in response to the Russian parliamentary agreement to launch a major escalation of the crisis by sending troops into Ukraine. That was approved by 100-plus members of the Duma.
None of Svitla's business networks have been hacked. The company has a secure encrypted computer system and a distributed network that spans the globe. Spare equipment has been shifted to other locations to provide redundancy and backup so business data is not lost, according to Anon.
Anon was born and grew up in the Lviv region of western Ukraine.
As a teenager she attended the Moscow Financial Academy, and, at the invitation of a professor from the U.S. visiting the academy, accepted an offer to come to Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon. She parlayed other connections to enter the University of Kansas where she earned a master’s in accounting and information systems.
She graduated with her second master’s degree in 2001 from Stanford University. In 2003, Anon formed her current firm using organic internal funding. Svitla specializes in custom software, web design and development, and information technology consulting.
Events this week in her homeland convince her that the global response should be clear: “The world should stand up for Ukraine and act now.”
