The modern workplace is struggling to find employees who are both willing and able to work independently. There are many skilled professionals in the market, but not many who are willing to take responsibility.
Even for recent college graduates entering the workforce with a strong theoretical foundation, applying that knowledge in practice can be difficult. They have trouble making decisions around risk and trade-offs, and they often wait for more data or clearer direction.
ManpowerGroup reports that 74% of employers worldwide faced a shortage of skilled talent in 2025. Cyprus is experiencing a similar issue. According to PwC, in 2026, 43% of local CEOs saw the limited availability of key skills as a threat to their businesses over the next year. For any fast-growing company, that talent shortage hits particularly hard when it needs not just professionals with the right knowledge, but people who can independently apply it. For investment funds, not having such people is no longer simply an HR issue but a direct constraint on business growth.
Where Decision Making and Uncertainty Clash
The academic system has value. It provides theoretical knowledge through tasks with clear rules and predictable outcomes. Students are praised for correct answers and penalised for mistakes. Unfortunately, that can create a habit of waiting until everything is clear before taking action.
In the business world, this approach has much the opposite effect. Conditions are not easily controlled. Instead of making difficult, risky decisions, employees might freeze because they lack data or predictable outcomes. That stifles initiative precisely when it is needed the most.
Prioritisation is another challenge. At university, tasks are usually completed separately. In business, dozens of tasks compete for the same limited resources. Founders and senior managers can get overwhelmed by micromanagement because teams don’t fully understand how to prioritise urgent tasks or what needs tackling first.
Then there is the difference between reports and implementation. Universities might reward logical reasoning, but business pays for practical results. Strategies that look great on paper fall short in practice. Weak assumptions often become apparent only after resources have been spent, when the cost of correcting them is too high.
Why Investment Funds Are Starting to Work with Talent Earlier
For early-stage startups, a shortage of employees who can work independently can quickly become a barrier to growth. When this problem repeats across multiple startups, it becomes more than an HR issue. Without a strong team, even the capital raised may fail to translate into business growth.
Investors don't get involved in education to prevent mistakes — both junior employees and senior executives make them. It’s about developing a pool of professionals in advance, ready to engage quickly with real business needs and challenges. Working with talent while students are still at university and giving them applied knowledge through practical experience help prepare these professionals for greater responsibility.
Cyprus's Talent Market: From Ecosystem Growth to Strong Teams
Cyprus’s technology environment and startup ecosystem are growing rapidly. In 2024, the country had five times as many startups as in 2020, making it one of the fastest-growing ecosystems in the EU. The expansion brought with it heightened competition for talent. The problem is not simply finding enough people with good technical skills. Growing companies need people who can apply those skills independently, quickly engage in real tasks and make decisions under uncertainty while taking on greater responsibility.
Investors are changing the approach to talent development. Waiting for the right candidates to come along isn’t enough anymore. They are beginning to engage with young professionals earlier, before they fully enter the workforce. Independence can develop through different types of experience: taking responsibility for the quality of analysis and the consequences of one's conclusions over several months is one thing; making decisions within hours, with limited data and even less time, is another.
Zubr Capital is taking this approach with two initiatives in Cyprus. The first is the League of Analysts, which provides extended practical experience through real investment tasks. The other is the AI Hackathon Zubr Capital Young, where attendees face tight deadlines while solving real-world problems. Both formats give young professionals practical experience in making decisions with incomplete information and taking responsibility for results before entering a full professional role.
The League of Analysts: Developing Responsibility Through Real-World Practice
The League of Analysts is a seven-month programme. It trains investment analysts and teaches them how to calculate what strategic decisions will mean for a business. It offers a clear entry point into venture capital and private equity.
The programme makes a difference by training younger professionals to mature quickly when they are responsible for results at an earlier stage. Making a mistake is not about a poor grade. It becomes an investment risk. A weak hypothesis can lead to decisions that prove extremely costly for a business.
The programme starts with theory, then quickly pivots to case studies and team projects. Every participant tests their own hypotheses, weighs alternatives, and defends their decisions, often in situations with no single correct answer.
For many attendees, the League of Analysts is their first real step into venture capital. The best graduates often receive employment opportunities within the fund’s ecosystem, including its portfolio companies. Some make the kind of professional progress in a few months that would typically take years. This progress comes not so much from new technical knowledge as from learning to work with uncertainty and take responsibility for decisions.
During 2025-2026, the League of Analysts expanded internationally, bringing in students from more than ten leading universities across Cyprus, Poland, France, Germany, and Lithuania. This expansion reflects a broader trend: European portfolio companies of private equity funds are growing their teams significantly faster than the market overall. Amid the current talent shortage, the ability to develop independent professionals internally is becoming a competitive advantage for investors.
Hackathons: Making Decisions at Market Speed
The League of Analysts is about depth. AI Hackathons are about speed. At the AI Hackathon Zubr Capital Young, participants only have a day to tackle the challenge of making decisions without complete information. Participants develop skills under intense time pressure, similar to the real world.
The first Zubr Capital Young Hackathon took place in Cyprus in 2025. It was hosted in Limassol and brought together over 50 participants. The goal was to move from idea and market research to a working prototype and investor pitch in one day.
In 2026, the hackathon will return to Cyprus on 24 October. It will focus entirely on AI products, with participants arriving with ideas or forming teams on site for new projects. During the event, they will receive feedback from real investors and senior executives from Zubr Capital’s portfolio companies.
The goal of the upcoming hackathon isn’t the product itself, but the experience of making difficult decisions under time pressure. Teams must decide on the fly what matters, what to abandon, where to allocate resources, and when to compromise. Without the ability to do extensive research, they have to learn how to prioritise and act as they go.
For investors, the format serves as a rapid stress test. Technical skills matter, but severe time constraints quickly reveal how participants behave under uncertainty. The format shows whether they can distinguish what matters from what is secondary, challenge assumptions, share responsibility, and defend decisions under pressure.
Plus, participants gain practical experience interacting with real investors, founders, and senior executives. Early-stage projects also receive valuable feedback and investor attention. These exchanges contribute to participants' development and the local startup ecosystem.
Talent is the New Investor Currency
Programmes like the League of Analysts and the hackathon create a steady flow of professionals for fast-growing portfolio companies. At Zubr Capital, this talent pool development is part of a broader approach to business growth built around three elements: leader, team, and capital. Talent development strengthens the second element — the team — by helping build teams capable of taking on increasing responsibility.
A company’s success rarely depends on how sophisticated its financial model is. What matters is something else. People within the company need the competence and confidence to make decisions, especially when the moment demands it. That is where the return on investment in people truly lies.
*By Alena Padalnitskaya, who leads Zubr Capital's student programmes
