Maksym Stepanenko
Business consultant: strategy, law, marketing, finance · Director, INNOVA CONSULT · Ottawa
14 years taking small and medium businesses in 50+ countries to the next level, protecting them and turning chaos into a system that runs without daily hands-on control.
Or write directly: ctmakc@gmail.com
- 14 yearsadvising small and medium businesses
- Thousandsof SMB clients
- 50+countries
- EN · UK · RUEnglish, Ukrainian, Russian
- Top 10Build North 2026 finalist
Five talks for business audiences
Each talk is based on client work, and the length follows your program. Delivered in English, Ukrainian or Russian.
Your first company abroad: how small firms pick the country
Most founders start with “which country has the lowest tax”. After 14 years and 50+ countries, I ask that question last. This talk walks through the questions that decide the choice: where the customers and the bank are, who will be the director, where the company is actually managed, what reporting the home country expects. Real cases from Canada, the UK, the US, the UAE, Estonia and Poland: the company that could not open a bank account, the 0% structure taxed at home, the LLC with a missed Form 5472.
AI in a small business: what to hand over first and how to measure it
A small firm starts with one process that takes hours every week and one number to check after a month. I show how we pick that first process in our own firms and for clients: lead replies, follow-ups, document intake. What we measure, where the pilot fails, and which tasks we keep with people. Includes the Statistics Canada data on SME adoption and what it says about where small firms are now.
Client data and AI in tax, legal and accounting firms
Staff at small professional firms already paste client documents into chat assistants, with or without a ban. This talk covers what Canadian firms are allowed to do with client personal information, what regulators and law societies have said about generative AI, and a working approach: strip identifiers before a document leaves the firm, keep an audit trail, give the final yes or no to a compliance person. Based on RedactGate, a Build North 2026 finalist.
Canada–Ukraine business: what small firms can use today
The modernized Canada–Ukraine Free Trade Agreement has covered services, investment and digital trade since July 2024. Most small firms on both sides have not used it yet. I cover the practical routes: setting up in Canada as a Ukrainian-owned company and what it changes for tax and funding, selling services across, public procurement registration, export support programs, and the mistakes I see most often in director residency, banking and CCPC status.
Leads small firms lose: response time, local search and AI answers
Small businesses pay for leads and then answer them the next day. Buyers now also stop at the AI answer above the Google results. From running marketing for small businesses since 2013: how fast a firm has to reply, what to check in Google Business Profile and reviews, how to see what ChatGPT and Google’s AI overview say about your firm, and which channels still bring paying clients.
What he checks as a judge
Five questions, the same ones he asks a business before setting it up abroad. As a mentor he goes through them with the founding team.
Events it fits
- Startup pitch competitions
- Hackathons — business and feasibility track
- Accelerator demo days
- Student venture competitions
- Diaspora and newcomer founder programs
- 01Business model and pricingWho pays, how much, how often, and what it costs to deliver.
- 02Go-to-marketThe first hundred customers: channel, sales cycle, cost of a lead.
- 03Incorporation and cross-border structureWhere the company sits, who the directors are, where the bank and the customers are.
- 04Regulatory and privacy riskLicences, client data, AML and the rules the team has not looked at yet.
- 05Whether the AI part solves a paid problemA process a customer already spends money or hours on, and a number that shows the change.
Bios for programs and introductions
Use as written. Third person, checked facts only.
14 years taking small and medium businesses in 50+ countries to the next level, protecting them and turning chaos into a system that runs without daily hands-on control.
Maksym Stepanenko is a business consultant based in Ottawa and director of INNOVA CONSULT: strategy, law, marketing, finance. For 14 years he has taken client businesses to the next level, protected them and turned a founder's chaos into a system that runs without daily hands-on control. Thousands of companies in 50+ countries.
Maksym Stepanenko is a business consultant and strategist based in Ottawa, director of INNOVA CONSULT (Innova Consulting Group). He has spent 14 years in business consulting, law, digital marketing and finance, helping thousands of small and medium businesses in more than 50 countries enter new markets, choose a jurisdiction and tax structure, open bank accounts, register trademarks, close legal risks and find customers.
He trained as an economist, ran a legal firm in Kyiv for nine years and worked as a court-appointed insolvency practitioner. In 2013 he founded Marketing Mix, a marketing and web agency for small businesses in Ukraine and Canada.
His work with a client starts where the business loses money and time and ends with a system that runs without daily hands-on control. Work that used to take a team now partly runs on AI agents, which makes it faster and cheaper for clients. In 2026 his team was a top-10 finalist at Build North (Georgian, Toronto).
He co-founded the Ukrainian Community of Lanark County and speaks English, Ukrainian and Russian.
Where the experience comes from
Invite Maksym to your event
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Email ctmakc@gmail.com →