Oklahoma businessmen with Global Leadership Inc. travel to Ukraine to foster ethics, leadership

Bell is one of a group of local businessmen who have traveled to the Ukraine several times during the past few years with the group Global Leadership Inc. to speak to up-and-coming community and business leaders in the country.

The businessmen keep going back year after year to speak with everyone from university students to local chambers of commerce groups.

The goal of the trips is to foster a new business environment in the country, which still lacks strong business leaders decades after the fall of communism, said Brad Yarbrough, Oklahoma City businessman and Global Leadership Inc. board member.

In Ukraine, businesspeople are often treated with suspicion, Yarbrough said.

“Over there, if you say you are a businessman, they think you are trying to steal from people,” he said.

The group speaks to business leaders and students in the Ukraine the importance of community leadership and the ethical business practices, such as the golden rule.