A-LOG on the Great Silk Road

“Any challenge is an opportunity!” – this is the motto of international transportation and freight forwarder company A-LOG.

Its founder and now CEO Lia Gogilashvili studied humanities, namely philology and music. She likes, as she puts it herself, the transparent music of Mozart as well as operas – but they definitely must be Italian. She has to face many obstacles in her constant search for innovation, but she never gives in. She knows that there are no insurmountable challenges, and in the most difficult moments, she remembers that during its golden age, the country was ruled by a woman.

She found herself in the transportation field quite unexpectedly, but it would very soon become the main sphere of her life. At first, she worked as an administrator, but her area of interest was constantly growing, and her activities diversifying. In 2000, the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs have announced an exchange program for Georgian business leaders for trainings in the field of international transportation. The individuals who were interested simply had to fill in an application form, and those who would be selected then had to go through an interview. Lia Gogilashvili, at that time an ordinary employee of a transportation company, was chosen among the best and sent to the USA for trainings. This is precisely where she got her first experience of working in a large transportation company, and where she acquired the necessary skills for it. For a period of two months, she learned the specifics of working with private companies, and the rules of the game in the transportation field. After returning to Georgia, she continued working in an international company, and when she finally became confident enough and decided that she had acquired enough experience, she started her own business.

Today, she considers the most positive aspect of her successful company to lie in the trust it has earned from its clients and partners; she prefers meeting in person to virtual contact, which is why she spends a lot of time flying, and never declines participating in international congresses and meetings. A-LOG’s strategy itself is primarily based on clients’ interests.

At this stage, the strength of the company is sea transportation. The fact that Georgia is a coastal country has been a historical and geopolitical factor that led to this.

Since 2014, the company has been working on a new strategy, it is constantly evolving and is not only planning future procedures, but taking concrete steps. Today, it sees the construction of the deep sea port in Anaklia as a very significant development for the further establishment of Georgia as an important transit country on the great Silk Road.