Stories Of Entrepreneurial Capitalism Across Our 37 International Editions

GEORGIA

A special issue of Forbes Georgia focuses on infrastructure. The cover portrays the Rikoti Pass project, which has a budget of up to $830 million to develop roads, bridges and tunnels for faster passage through the mountains that divide the country into its east and west halves.

GREECE

Forbes Greece includes Taxibeat on a list of the country’s great “started from scratch” success stories. Frustration over trying to hail a cab inspired the Athens ride-sharing service, which German carmaker Daimler acquired for $43 million in 2017. Renamed Beat, it has since expanded across South America.

HUNGARY

Based in California and counting partnerships with Apple and China’s Dangdang, self-publishing platform PublishDrive features authors and books in more than 100 countries and 65 languages. “We designed for the global market from day one,” says Hungarian CEO and cofounder Kinga Jentetics, 34.

INDIA

Of the 26 Indian companies that passed $1 billion in valuation this year as of mid-August, among the most valuable are edtech UpGrad and online pharmacy PharmEasy, each worth more than $3 billion.

INDONESIA

The Jakarta-based co-CEOs of Lemonilo have completed a Series B round led by Sequoia Capital India, reportedly valuing the online marketplace of natural food and skincare products at roughly $300 million.

ISRAEL

Forbes Israel’s Best Doctors list spotlights psychiatrists studying the impact of the coronavirus on the brain. It appears to be causing some patients to develop sleep and anxiety disorders. “They do not have virus in the body, but they are left with the residue,” says Gil Zalsman of Tel Aviv University.

ITALY

Giovanni Costantino, CEO of yachting conglomerate The Italian Sea Group, took the company public on the Milan stock exchange in June; it recently hit a market cap of approximately $400 million. Billionaire designer Giorgio Armani owns a 5% stake.

JAPAN

“The concept of sports business can be expanded,” says Shingo Okamura, CEO of Tokyo entertainment firm DeNA. In the past 10 years, he has lifted the money-losing Yokohama BayStars baseball team to profitability by drawing in first-time fans through gimmicks and stadium-adjacent attractions.

KAZAKHSTAN

Forbes Kazakhstan’s 30 Under 30 issue features BIP House, a group of TikTok stars who live together in Almaty, count about 18 million followers across social media and post video challenges like crushing a water bottle while drinking from it.

LATVIA

Within a decade, Dace Meldere increased her herd of 178 bovines into the 500-strong purebred beef cattle organic farm Kolumbi, which also grows grain and is located near the western Latvian town of Kuldīga. She features in Forbes Latvia’s list of top livestock farmers.

MEXICO

In four years, 24 tech startups in Latin America have become unicorns. Among them are Kavak, a Mexican platform to buy and sell used cars, and NotCo, a Chilean maker of plant-based food and drinks.

MONGOLIA

Last year, the Bank of Mongolia appointed Dulguun Ganbyamba, now 33, as first deputy governor. His first agenda item has been banking reform: improving supervision and conducting risk-based inspections in order to stabilize and strengthen the country’s financial sector.

NIGERIA

Nigerian fintechs raised $439 million in 2020, some 20% of all capital raised by African tech startups, according to Ernst & Young Nigeria. Among the fintech entrepreneurs highlighted by Forbes Africa: TeamApt CEO Tosin Eniolorunda (left) and Bamboo COO Yanmo Omorogbe.

POLAND

Having handed over the reins of her 30-year-old marketing agency to her son-in-law, 65-year-old Katarzyna Łakińska launched the website Flexi.pl for people over 50 looking for jobs, events or training opportunities.

PORTUGAL

In January, Portuguese triple jumper Patrícia Mamona, 32, fought a bout with Covid-19. Come March, she grabbed gold at the European Championships, followed by a silver at the Tokyo Olympics.

ROMANIA

A Bucharest native and onetime Wall Street analyst in New York, Fulga Dinu manages the Romanian real estate portfolio of Austrian investment fund Immofinanz. Her new normal is rethinking tenant contracts for flexibility, customization and relocation options.

RUSSIA

Tesla competitor Arrival went public via a SPAC in March, making Russian founder Denis Sverdlov, 43, a billionaire. The U.K. will begin testing its electric buses in the next few months.

SLOVAKIA

The biggest residential developer in Slovakia, Cresco has an extensive portfolio that includes the U.S. ambassador’s home in Bratislava. Managing director Ján Krnáč explains how the pandemic is fueling the nation’s property prices.

SOUTH KOREA

Fronting Forbes Korea’s list of 100 Power YouTubers, Lia Kim has 1 million subscribers on her channel as chief choreographer at Seoul-based 1Million Dance Studio, which counts 24 million on its page.

SPAIN

Forbes Spain honors Francisco Reynés as Best CEO of 2020. He leads Naturgy, a publicly traded natural-gas company in Madrid that gave customers extra time to pay their bills during the pandemic and provided energy-efficiency training to hundreds of families.

SWITZERLAND

Andy Yen quit his well-paid job at CERN, one of the most prestigious nuclear research institutions in the world, to help build ProtonMail, a secure and privacy-oriented email provider. Today, the seven-year-old Swiss startup boasts 50 million users worldwide.

THAILAND

MedPark, which Forbes Thailand calls the “vanguard of private hospitals,” opened in Bangkok last year. Managing director Pongpat Patanavanich says he expects the $230 million facility to be a Southeast Asian hub for specialized and complex care.

UKRAINE

Kherson native Roman Prokofiev cofounded job-search website Jooble in 2006 from a dorm at Kyiv Polytechnic Institute. Today its global catalog of job listings attracts 1.8 million daily users from 71 countries.

VIETNAM

Ten years ago, Do Minh Phu sold his sanitary-pad business and invested in Hanoi’s TPBank. As chairman, he has since guided the then-small bank to a public listing and a spot on Forbes Vietnam’s new ranking of the country’s 25 most valuable finance brands. In the first half of this year, pretax profits reached $130 million.