War Taught this Ukrainian Entrepreneur the Value of Resilience

Salome Mikadze-Struk is no stranger to adversity. The daughter of refugees, she built a software-development business as an undergraduate at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and kept it running despite the outbreak of war in her native Ukraine. Now, she’s drawing on her experiences to mentor tech-startup founders and speak publicly about the importance of resilience in entrepreneurship.Mikadze-Struk was studying at Georgetown University, in Washington, D.C., when COVID-19 struck. Classes went online, and she moved back to Ukraine. In the midst of that disruption she saw an opportunity to develop her business idea, called Movadex, by tapping Ukraine’s pool of talented young engineers. Then Russia invaded in early 2022, during her final semester. Taking online classes from bomb shelters and helping employees evacuate to safer parts of the country was surreal, she says, but the team kept the company afloat and she graduated later that year.In 2023, Mikadze-Struk took a hiatus from