We are pleased to continue our new Global Voices series, designed to highlight the experience, work, and perspectives of our colleagues across MEHITS’ international offices. Our next guest is Nikolay Milyuchikhin, General Manager of MEHITS Middle East.

Please introduce MEHITS Middle East to someone who is not familiar with it.
MEHITS Middle East was established in October 2025 to replace Climaveneta Middle East. The new company will sell applied products and services in the Gulf area as well as North Africa, Levante, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. We are still a small organization of 10 members but we are rapidly growing. Our main business interests lie in the Data Center Cooling, although we are trying to expand comfort and process cooling sales too.

Could you describe your role in detail? What are your main responsibilities?
My role and my task is to establish a local hub company which will be a model for the future expansion of MEHITS. We should create a financially sound organization with diversified sales channels and professional aftersales team. All the business processes should conform to MELCO standards, and the team members should be well trained accordingly. Last but not least, we have to implement ERP and CRM systems to make the processes transparent, reliable, and compliant. Then this company can be replicated in other areas like Africa, Asia, Australia, etc.

From your experience, what are the key differences in business culture and working styles between the Middle East and Europe?
Europe is very diverse. The difference in the business style between Germany and Italy is bigger than between the Middle East and Russia, where I have worked for 28 years. Actually, I was surprised to learn that business people in the Middle East are very similar to the customers I have dealt with in Russia. I can read them and I can feel them, and I have found myself very comfortable doing business with here.

Does the approach to HVAC and IT Cooling differ in the Middle East compared to other regions?
Speaking shortly, not really. Sales channels, decision making, key stakeholders are the same like elsewhere in Europe or Russia. However, the portion of the IT Cooling business here is huge, and this adds pressure both on MEHITS Middle East and the factory in terms of product specification, factory tests, commissioning, and maintenance

In your view, how is the applied HVAC market evolving in the Middle East?
I can’t see many signs of evolution in the Middle East. In some countries like Saudi Arabia the market is booming, in Lebanon and Syria it has collapsed, in Dubai the market is stable. But for MEHITS Middle East no evolution is ok – we still have very low market share, so we have a lot of opportunities to grow.

Looking ahead, what do you expect to be the main growth drivers for the region?
The main driver for the business expansion here is growth of Data Centers. Few years ago we have talked about tens of MegaWatts, and now we have GigaWatt projects in sight. The stakes are high. In order to be with the trend, we have to invest in new products, built new localized production facilities, hire and train people. This is expensive and risky, but this is the price MEHITS has to pay to become Tier 1 player in the world’s applied business.