Author: Emily
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Fresh from picking up three World Post & Parcel Awards in Tallinn this month, including the prestigious Industry Leadership award; Post & Parcel spoke to Igor Smelyansky, CEO of Ukrposhta. Igor has been responsible for maintaining postal services across Ukraine and leading around 70,000 postal staff during a full-scale war.
In this interview Igor discusses delivering mail by boats because of the burst dam, the significance of physical money for Ukranians living in occupied territory, why uplifting stamps resonate with Ukranians during wartime and what drives him to keep going and pushing forward, however difficult things get.
I wanted to start by congratulating you on winning three awards – what do they mean to you and the team?
I feel like I can retire!
Seriously, it is really great for morale. After a year and a half of war, the tiredness kicks in. What the Russian forces are now doing is trying to wear down our psyche, particularly with the bombings, night after night. It is hard for people to go on. So, good news like this, this high estimation of our work really helps to keep our morale up. And the second point is that it is an incentive to continue to improve. I told the team we should celebrate these awards – it is credit to our hard work – but it also provides us with the motivation to deliver all the plans we have for this year so our clients can see we are improving every day.
What are your plans for the coming year?
So I know people usually don’t do this during war. But nevertheless, we plan 100% digitalization, so all our transactions will go paperless. We are about 50% there. We are planning to roll out 1,500 generators covering the entire country. And we want to make sure our system can function even if there isn’t electricity or internet connection. We are designing a wireless handheld device which has a computer, a scanner and a camera, which our mail carriers can use to upload all the data they need for
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