Standing strong: Parimatch Tech's Katerina Biloruska on coping with the war in Ukraine

On the morning of 24 February 2022, the unthinkable happened when Russia President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine over the country’s plans to join NATO. More than four months later and the brutal conflict has led to 5.6 million Ukrainian refugees fleeing across Europe to escape the war, according to July 2022 figures from The UN Refugee Agency.

For Parimatch Tech’s co-owner, Katerina Biloruska, it was a huge shock when the invasion began. At the time she was living in Ukraine with a two-month-old baby. “You have to move out of the country with such a little baby, it’s very difficult,” she tells EGR Intel, dialling into the interview from Montenegro where she is living for the summer. Once her family was safely settled in Cyprus, where Parimatch has its headquarters, Biloruska was front and centre assisting her non-profit Parimatch Foundation colleagues on the ground back in Ukraine.

While the Parimatch Foundation team helped those in shelters in Ukraine with emergency supplies, the mother-of-one reached out to the foundation’s global business partners to generate extra funds as well as humanitarian aid. In the first four months of the war, the foundation had purchased and distributed over 50 tonnes of humanitarian aid at a cost of UAH8.5 million (£234,848) and assisted more than 55,000 Ukrainians.

Initially, Parimatch was focused on evacuating its employees, some of whom were living in battle hotspots such as Kyiv, Bucha, Kharkiv and Makariv. Staff in the Cyprus HQ were working 24/7 to help those in Ukraine with logistical challenges and to find temporary housing elsewhere.

Biloruska recollects the unusual and distressing situation: “We had a lot of very unpleasant stories of what happened to our people, and we were trying to help everybody. We gave financial aid to the people who had requested it. We were trying to help them with logistics because when people are frightened, they do not know where to go and how to go.”

Corporate volunteering has continued throughout the conflict, with Parimatch employees offering help to deliver medicines and supplies for families, babies and animals. During the first four months of the war, more than 600 people were evacuated, with 4,200 sleeping places arranged as well as 1,000 food packages distributed.

The foundation is now trying to return to some of its pre-war programmes such as supporting children’s sport and education. This month, it launched a new project focused on children’s mental health, especially for those affected by the bloodshed. Under the ‘Help for Ukraine’ programme, summer recreational camps are being held in western Ukraine, Cyprus and Bulgaria to give children a chance to unwind through a range of activities including music, singing and drawing. Special attention will go on psychological rehabilitation with art therapy and group sessions to relieve fears and stress.

Charity begins at home

The main focus of Biloruska’s time and efforts goes into corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives in her role as chairwoman of the Parimatch Foundation. It was established in 2019 with a goal to promote health and wellbeing through education and community participation in sports. However, Russia’s invasion put a halt to these projects as the foundation turned its attentions to supporting families affected by the war.

During her last interview with EGR Intel, in-person at ICE 2020, Biloruska explained how tricky it had been to shake off the stigma associated with gambling. She said at the time: “Some individuals and organisations do not want to take our help and support because we are from the gambling industry. They put us in the same category as alcohol and cigarettes. What is the reason for not taking our money if we just want to do something for the community?”

However, Parimatch Tech’s co-owner is proud to say that attitude is changing. By working with government entities such as the Ministry of Education and Ministry of Sport in Ukraine, the sports betting operator has turned that perception around. “During the three years that our foundation has existed, we have actually broken some stereotypes and that fear.

“When you start to work with such governmental organisations, you become more trustworthy. And at some point, people actually understand that we are really very sincere in that.”

Variety is the spice of life

For Biloruska, her 10-year tenure at Parimatch has seen her climb up the ranks from an account manager in business development in 2011 to her current role as chairwoman of the Parimatch Foundation and member of the supervisory board. A career in betting was a far cry from Biloruska’s initial interest in journalism, having studied the subject at the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv from 2007 to 2013. On realising that it wasn’t the profession for her, Biloruska asked her father, who had founded Parimatch in 1994, if she could join the business. Her father had experience of the retail side of the operation and was running the company until 2009.

During her time studying at university, Parimatch as a company underwent significant change as her father welcomed a new team onboard to build out an operation beyond the retail arm. Sergey Portnov joined as CEO of Parimatch in 2015 and was credited with transforming the company from a bookmaker trading out of physical locations into an online sports betting platform. Portnov was well known for hiring a young and ambitious new team to drive online betting forward in Ukraine.

When Biloruska joined the business in 2011, she was mostly dealing with the countries where Parimatch was operating at the time such as online in Ukraine, plus retail in Belarus and Georgia. “It was a very wide range of tasks, which was very good for me at that time because it allowed me to understand the business from all sides to see the whole picture,” she reminisces.

The next challenge in 2015 was Parimatch’s entry into the Kazakhstan market for retail and online. Here, the business development team was involved in finding staff, obtaining the licence and building the marketing strategy.

With that experience under her belt, the Ukrainian executive spearheaded the operator’s launch into Cyprus in 2017, the same year in which it secured entry into the Tanzanian market. For Biloruska, it was a challenging time as the project was two-fold: obtaining the licence to operate on the Mediterranean island as well as establishing the firm’s headquarters in Limassol.

It’s a family affair

With a family background in betting and the company starting from humble beginnings in a small flat in Kyiv, it echoes the journey of UK online betting giant bet365 which began operating from a portable building in a Stoke-on-Trent car park. Starting with the family’s betting shop estate run by father Peter Coates in 1974, Denise Coates launched the online business in 2001. A 2021 article by The Times said Biloruska “has been dubbed as the Ukrainian Denise Coates” but how does she feel about the comparison?

“I think it’s not true. It’s very hard to compare because, as I understand, she’s actually running the business operationally. The last three or four years, I’ve not been deeply involved in the operations. I have nothing to do with the players and I have nothing to do with the teams who are directly working with the players,” she explains. Instead, Parimatch Foundation’s chairwoman is more focused on the corporate functions of the business such as HR, legal and finance.

Twenty-eight years on since the company was formed, Parimatch now boasts a workforce of 3,000, including 1,000 IT specialists across nine R&D centres, hailing from a variety of countries. “When I joined, we did not have any corporate processes. We are now a corporate company with huge, long processes. We never thought at that point that we would have a sponsorship with Chelsea or someone else very big,” she says modestly.

The operator has undergone a huge transformation from describing itself as a gambling and entertainment business to becoming a technology company. In July 2021, the operator rebranded to Parimatch Tech to represent its transition from a traditional bookmaker into a product-focused tech business.

Parimatch first made its entry into the Russian market in 1998 but withdrew its franchise in March 2022 due to the country’s invasion of Ukraine. The company is also in the process of leaving Belarus due to it being a close Russian ally. “So, we lost two big markets. And, of course, it makes a loss for us, and a very big one. But there is no other way. There’s no compromise because I’m Ukrainian and the bigger part of our team are Ukrainians. It’s impossible for us now to work with Russia or Belarus,” she asserts.

Spreading its wings

As a result of losing Russia and Belarus, Parimatch is looking to fill the gap by exploring new markets and product offerings. Biloruska reveals that the operator finds Africa and Romania to have great potential. It also sees opportunities in B2B where the firm can offer its own products to other operators. “As we cut Russia and Belarus, we have a lot of internal resources, which can be used in other markets or fields. So now it’s time to try something new,” she adds. The operator needs to make some internal changes first to set up a team to sell the B2B offering but Biloruska is hopeful it will have at least one or two clients signed up this year.

Former CEO Portnov had hinted back in 2021 that the operator was considering the possibility of an IPO. When quizzed on it, Parimatch Foundation’s chairwoman explains that the plans have been put on hold due to the Russia-Ukraine war. Biloruska elaborates: “That was something we were thinking of very seriously before the war started and that was the plan. But for now, I think we will postpone it and return to it maybe in a year.As we lost some profit in Russia and Belarus, we have to find some new niche for ourselves to renew our profits. And after that, when the situation is more stable, we can again think about an IPO.”

Inspiring others

As a woman on the supervisory board, Biloruska is pleased to count seven other females in the 19-strong leadership team. When the political situation is more stable, she hopes to focus her efforts back onto diversity and inclusion. “Before the war, we were preparing for it and now we’re trying to return to the educational materials about diversity because that’s something we have to speak about. It’s not just about women or gender, it’s also about the different nations. We have become an international company, and it means we have to be tolerant of each other,” she reasons.

Parimatch Foundation’s chief emphasises the importance of female role models and sharing her experience with others. “I think that’s more the task of women like me to talk about that, to inspire and tell our story,” says Biloruska.

Having worked at Parimatch for 10 years now, Biloruska remains modest when asked about her proudest achievements over the last decade. She attributes the success of the business to the team she works with rather than her own accomplishments.

“For me, personally, the biggest achievement is to be who I am now because I’ve learned a lot during all that time at Parimatch. I came knowing nothing about the business and about gambling. I feel I’m a professional in that sphere, and I think that is a very big personal achievement.”