CEO in Exile wins fight to return to Britain

Imagine being kicked out of the country you’ve called home for 9 years.

You leave behind the company you spent years building and are forced into a foreign country. You become a “CEO in exile”.

This isn’t some Brexit nightmare. As we reported earlier this year, this really happened to Alex Berezovskiy, a London-based Russian entrepreneur.

In January he found himself forced out of the country after falling victim to a bizarre loophole in the system, leaving behind his team of 15 people in London. After a change in his relationship with an EU national, he had to reapply for an entrepreneur visa. The only way he could do this was by leaving the country and starting the process again leaving his business in a state of flux.

But on the day that Britain woke up to a future outside of the European Union, Berezovskiy’s fortunes changed for the better. 5 months after leaving the UK his nightmare has finally ended.

How he won

Chronicling his journey week by week on his blog, Berezovskiy caught the attention of Tech City UK, the Government’s tech body. After some back-and-forth negotiations he was able to take advantage of a little-known new category of visa.

Berezovskiy received an exceptional talent visa, usually reserved for outstanding artists or scientists, that was recently extended to include people working in tech. Although we don’t doubt his artistic talents too.

He will be one of the first to receive the Tech Nation Visa, which was created to encourage outstanding entrepreneurs to build businesses in Britain.

“I was granted a residence permit for 5 years and 4 months” he wrote on his blog.

“I’ll do my best to be a “good migrant” – you know, bring value, money, pay taxes, create jobs – so basically all that stuff we’ve been doing anyway. Just more of it.”

Life for Berezovskiy will now finally return to normal. His company weathered the storm and his staff of 15 can look forward to having their CEO back in the office.

But Berezovskiy returns to a country that has changed dramatically in 8 weeks. While sharing the news on Facebook, he reflected on the reality now faced by many foreign entrepreneurs:

It feels crap that just as I was eager to come back to the country I considered very open-minded and forward thinking, it turns to isolation.

Let’s hope it’s just a small step back, not a trend. If I’m kicked out again, the Dutch sounded very welcoming lately. But England is really my home (if I may say so), and I can’t wait to be back. Hell yeah!