There are a lot of Jewish CEOs in Kansas City. Local Ukrainian immigrant Regina Sergiyenko can now be added to the list.
Sergiyenko is CEO of PocketBook-USA, maker of one of the world’s top five e-readers. She is responsible for operations in the United States, Canada, Mexico and Israel. PocketBook, which sells more than 50,000 devices monthly in countries around the world, is the best selling e-reader in Eastern Europe and ranks No. 3 Western Europe.
“I am pleased to bring our multifunctional e-readers to U.S. consumers so they too can benefit from our lightweight, compact, state-of-the-art products, excellent customer support and value for the dollar,” said Sergiyenko (pronounced sayr jee yehn koh), who left the Ukraine 12 years ago.
PocketBook has established its U.S. headquarters in Overland Park, where Sergiyenko resides with family. After meeting her husband, Alexey, while he was visiting family in the Ukraine, Sergiyenko moved with him to Israel for a few years before immigrating to Kansas City 10 years ago. She has a stepson, Alexey, age 24, and two daughters, Anastasia, 10, and Catherine, 6.
Sales are good
Under Sergiyenko’s leadership, PocketBook plans to open approximately 20 locations nationwide in 2011. PocketBook opened its first U.S. location at Independence Center in Independence, Mo., in November 2010 followed by a second location in Seattle, Wash.
PocketBook is the first international personal technology company to open a chain of locations across the United States. Her position requires her to travel several times a month to work with her staff as they prepare to open more locations.
She is happy with the sales reports so far, saying figures are good.
“We always want more, however I can’t complain,” she said.
The company currently sells five models of e-readers. In the kiosk here, she is hoping to sell between 100 and 150 units, selling from $150 to $300, per month. PocketBook is currently “close” to meeting those projections.
“We would love to get 5 percent of the U.S. market,” she added. “We hope to get there in two years.”
Sergiyenko said that while the local kiosk didn’t open until November, PocketBook has been sold online in the United States for more than a year.
A perfect match
Sergiyenko has master’s degrees in both engineering and business. When she was just 19 years old, she began a successful business in her hometown of Lvov, Ukraine, in which she arranged to purchase wheat from farmers, had it milled and sold it to bakeries.
PocketBook is a good fit for Sergiyenko’s combination of engineering and business skills. She speaks five languages, including Hebrew, and strongly believes in the benefits of networking. Since moving to the United States, Sergiyenko has held positions with a bank, title company and chemical company.
She joined the company in January 2010 and she “loves it.”
“I like the technology. It’s easy. It’s convenient. It doesn’t take up any space at your house, like books. With this technology it allows you to keep 20,000 books. That’s more than anyone can keep in their home,” she said.
Sergiyenko said PocketBook compares well with Kindle, one of the top selling e-readers in the United States.
“The biggest difference is that we have an open format. With a Kindle you can only go on Amazon.com to buy books. With ours you can buy books on many different websites. We were also the first reader in the world which has the technology to read Hebrew,” she said.
Sergiyenko hopes to get a PocketBook store open in Israel in the near future. Right now PocketBook employs five people in the United States and two in Israel.
PocketBook is the first e-reader capable of supporting text-to-speech in 24 languages. Owners can choose whether they want a book read aloud by a male or female voice, the tone and the tempo. PocketBook also is the world’s first e-reader to include a factory-installed language translation dictionary.
PocketBook offers a wide variety of e-readers that deliver an easy-on-the-eye, no flickering experience similar to reading ink on paper. Since there’s no backlight, screen content is clearly visible in bright sunlight. PocketBook e-readers are available with Wi-Fi, 3G and Android 2.0 technology. With a full-scale Internet browser, it’s simple to wirelessly download books onto any PocketBook e-reader and to surf the Internet. PocketBook currently offers 30,000 free books at BookLand.net and another 300,000 volumes for purchase. Books currently are available in 60 languages.
“This is great for students who need to download books for class,” Sergiyenko said.
E-books from other online book shops also can be easily downloaded and read on PocketBook e-readers.
PocketBook’s electronic reading devices were developed in close cooperation with the global leader in consumer hardware design and production, which also consults with brands including Apple and Sony.
The world’s first e-reader to include a factory-installed language translation dictionary, PocketBook also is the first e-reader capable of supporting text-to-speech in 24 languages.
In addition to being equipped to play music and audio books, all PocketBook models contain an array of games including Battleship, Solitaire, Sudoku, chess, checkers and TankWar.
