Over the last 30 years, GIG has established itself as the largest industrial holding in Georgia with a diversified business portfolio that spans across 12 industries in five countries and includes more than 100 companies and 10,000 employees. Investor.ge sat down with founder and chairman David Bezhuashvili to talk about the company’s growth over the last three decades, his leadership style, and the launch of GIG’s new brand identity.
First, I would like to congratulate you on this incredible milestone for GIG, which celebrates 30 years of doing business this year! In a country that has undergone a major economic transformation in that time, how have you as the founder, and now chairman, led the company to successfully navigate the challenges associated with such rapid change and ensured that the company remained relevant?
Thank you very much, this is a very important milestone for us! We can say that we established ourselves, developed, and grew together with this new Georgia. We have faced interesting challenges, overcome difficulties together, and most importantly – found our purpose and place in the business and economic landscape of the country.
I am also a representative of a truly transformational generation that had to live in two completely different worlds. We were born and formed in the Soviet Union, and after its collapse, we started our careers from scratch. We studied how to run a business according to Western standards while at the same time having to put those lessons to practice. In this process, we were backed by an unshakeable belief in a better future, the right vision, a strong spirit, and relentless character.
From the beginning, I wanted to do something that had a potential for development and would be of significant benefit to our country because I felt that participating in the building of a new Georgia would be a necessary, and, at the same time, honorable endeavor. It was also clear to me that even in the difficult environment of that time, people and business ideas with great potential were emerging – and I, with my team, wanted to support them.
The key to our success is that we have stayed true to this mission and these goals. We have always tried to turn any challenge into an opportunity and have proactively embarked on projects that may have seemed impossible to many. In addition to this, we have built up our management systems based on Western standards and created a strong team that has helped each other to develop quickly.
When GIG was first founded, it was largely focused on the energy sector, but has since successfully diversified its portfolio to more than 10 different sectors, including real estate, hospitality, education, insurance, healthcare, FMCG, pharmaceuticals, production of construction materials, agriculture, and development of a sea port infrastructure. What key strategies did you implement to ensure successful expansion into these varied industries?
Energy is the industry in which we have generated the largest scale of activities, and we plan to stay in this sector in the long run because we believe that this is an important sector for the country – particularly in the area of green energy development, including solar and wind solutions.
However, soon after our company was founded, it became clear to us that the key to expansion was to see great potential in particular businesses – not just a particular industry or activity. We understood the risks and difficulties involved in this approach but knew that industry knowledge and experience, while important, are not enough. We realized that confining ourselves to one industry was limiting us in terms of diversity, scale, and pace of development.
To explore our greater potential and unlock it quickly, we started actively searching for opportunities in other sectors. To do this, our partners became a cornerstone of our core strategy. We made the decision to become a strategic partner for large companies operating in Georgia and other developing countries of the region, leveraging our investment know-how based on Western standards to propel their dynamic growth.
I would also like to emphasize our special interest and dedication to the education industry, which we perceive as more than usual business activities. We feel a growing inspiration to contribute to the development of this field in our country and in the region. Along with other initiatives, we are partners with Arizona State University in the region and are planning to implement several interesting projects together.
Practice has shown us that we should stay loyal to our approaches and principles and act proactively. This is what has led to our higher-than-average growth rate and diversity of business areas. Today, GIG is one of the largest Georgian diversified holding companies, represented by more than 100 companies in five countries and 12 industries.
In addition to expanding its sectoral diversity, GIG has also expanded its geographic diversity – now operating in Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Kazakhstan. What do you think is the key to successfully managing such a geographically and culturally diverse enterprise?
Along with the growth of our business, we understood that the investment know-how and experience we accumulated as a result of our rapid development in Georgia, a post-Soviet country, could be exported to other countries in the region. Georgia has always had – and still has – a mission to be one of the first receivers and conductors of progress coming from the West to other countries in the region.
Moreover, despite cultural diversity, the economies and business sectors of the countries of the region have many similar characteristics. And, as you know, the Georgian market is small in size, so to scale up, you need to look beyond its borders.
The key to success here was the same: we needed to stay true to our purpose and mission of exploring high potential people and businesses and helping them realize their opportunities. We have successfully done this in many countries and continue to follow this path actively.
We believe that both in Georgia and throughout the post-Soviet space, Western-led development is the right way to ensure effective long-term economic growth. There have been many challenges along the way, but the opportunities are limitless with this model, which has always been and will always be exciting for us.
As far as management challenges are concerned, our team is the key to success here. Our employees have the necessary competence and strong motivation to integrate our business culture into our subsidiaries in different countries and support their rapid growth. We constantly strive to deepen the necessary knowledge and skills and unlock leadership potential in our team members, which has been crucial to our long-term success.
This year is not only the 30th anniversary of GIG – it also represents another big moment for the company, which is about to launch its new brand identity. What motivated this decision, and why do you believe now is the right time to introduce this new brand identity?
Yes, this is a very important stage in our journey. After all, business is a living organism, and like each of us, it also faces the challenge of deepening its self-awareness to better fulfill itself and create more value for society. In our 30 years of activity, particularly in the post-Covid era, we have felt the need to reflect deeply on the path we have traveled, to analyze the results we have achieved, and to look to the future with renewed energy, optimism, and inspiration – focusing more on our purpose, mission, and vision.
We think we have done this. After deep reflection, we believe our renewed brand identity is the beginning of a new, very active phase of our business development. Moreover, it is an important part of ensuring that the outside world perceives us exactly as we are. Strengthening our brand is strategically important for our continued successful expansion in the region.
It is worth noting that in the process of these transformational changes, we have maintained historical continuity. In particular, when updating the visual side of the brand, we relied on the basic concept of the previous logo while incorporating a new, modern outlook to it. We made appropriate changes to the company name and introduced the phrase “multi-industrial holding” to reflect our growing diversity.
GIG’s new brand identity is based on seven guiding values. Can you tell me what these values mean to you and how they have influenced your management style?
Each of these is highly valuable for me – these are the principles and approaches that create and strengthen our identity. It is particularly important that we consider our team of self-fulfilled employees as a cornerstone of our strategy, which means that each employee is not just a staff member, but a true partner on the way to achieving joint success – both at the corporate and individual levels.
We also believe that true teamwork is critical. We strive to foster the values of unity, respect for each other, and support in achieving shared success.
I would also emphasize the importance of trust as a key foundation for our success both internally and externally. Integrity, positive intentions, continuous deepening of knowledge and skills, and constant improvement of results are the factors that create and expand trust in all directions.
Our values speak for themselves when describing our management style. We try to give our employees more freedom, show them more trust and support, and believe that as a result, they will be able to do more for the company and themselves. In other words, we are working to run our business with more leadership approaches than ever before.
With the upcoming rebranding, what new strategic goals does GIG aim to achieve? And as you look ahead to the coming years, how do you envision GIG’s role in Georgia and the region evolving?
I see GIG as a very important player in our region, which will actively continue to implement large projects in important sectors using its investment know-how based on Western standards.
Of course, we will continue to implement interesting projects in Georgia, but we would like to focus more efforts on expanding our business in other countries. At this stage, Kazakhstan remains a priority, and we are also thinking about entering the markets of other Central Asian countries.
We very much hope that the conflict in Ukraine will soon be over and that we will be able to actively return to this market with new projects. We continue to discuss several interesting projects in the Caucasus region and in our other neighboring countries as well.
Overall, our goal is that more interesting people and businesses with exceptionally high potential become our partners, and we will be happy to support them in quick realization of their potential. It is our aim and strong desire that GIG’s activities will have a large-scale positive impact not only on the development of our business partners, but also on the economic progress and welfare of the societies in their countries.
Source: investor.ge
