20 years in international trade — from manager to founder
My name is Denis Kogan. I've worked in international trade for over 20 years: I started as a foreign-trade manager, rose to head of a foreign-trade department, and since 2020 I've run my own company sourcing, purchasing, and importing goods into Russia from abroad.
Over the years I've gone from employee to business owner, seeing the foreign-trade market from every angle — as a hired specialist, a department head, and as an entrepreneur who is personally accountable to clients for every shipment.
The "white customs" principle
"White customs" is my principled position: sourcing and import can and should be conducted fully legally, with correct customs value and documentation — no grey or semi-grey schemes.
Many companies on the market offer "optimization" through undervaluation or swapping commodity codes. That's short-term savings with long-term risk — back payments, fines, delays at the border, and damaged standing with banks and partners.
I work differently: I build processes so clients clear customs quickly and predictably, and savings come from strong supplier, logistics, and documentation work — not from risk.
Negotiation — a discipline of its own
Beyond sourcing and logistics practice, I studied negotiation systematically — at the Tallinn School of Managers (V.K. Tarasov) and with Igor Ryzov. That gave me a methodology, not just intuition.
This combination — a foreign-trade practitioner with systematic negotiation training — is rare in the market. Usually it's either a negotiator without industry expertise, or an industry specialist without negotiation training.