ReBuild Ukraine Warsaw: how to keep the meetings and contacts you make at the fair

What does ReBuild Ukraine offer international companies today?

ReBuild Ukraine is an annual international exhibition and conference in Warsaw where companies, government bodies, international financial institutions and Ukrainian municipalities agree on projects to rebuild Ukraine. The event is often seen as preparation for reconstruction after the war ends. In practice it works more broadly than that.

First, it is where companies and institutions from different countries coordinate with each other: who finances, who builds, who supplies equipment and who has a local partner. Second, it shows what Ukraine needs right now. Energy, housing, water supply and municipal infrastructure are needed today, and these are the projects municipalities and ministries bring to Warsaw. For a company outside the region, Warsaw is also the practical base: Poland is where many international firms set up the logistics, team and partners they use for Ukraine and for the wider Central and Eastern European market. We cover that route in more detail in entering the Ukrainian market.

Who should you meet at ReBuild Ukraine?

For an international company, ReBuild Ukraine is first of all a chance to meet the people you will need on the ground. In our experience it pays to plan meetings in advance with four groups.

Ukrainian companies

Contractors, developers, energy and utility companies that look for suppliers, technology partners and co-investors. They are also the most likely local partners for a foreign firm that does not want to build a team in Ukraine from scratch. The Ukrainian national pavilion in 2025 presented privatisation, public-private partnerships, industrial parks and production localisation, plus an interactive investment map of current projects.

Other international firms and national delegations

The official 2026 exhibitor catalogue already lists more than 570 companies from around 30 countries. They include national pavilions of Germany, Italy, Ireland, Latvia, Poland and Andalusia (Spain), pavilions of the US states of California and Washington, and export agencies from Finland (Business Finland), Switzerland (Switzerland Global Enterprise), the Netherlands (RVO), France (Business France), Austria and Japan (JETRO). The United Kingdom is forming an official delegation. Many of these firms look for consortium partners, and a conversation that starts at a neighbouring stand can end in a joint bid.

Polish companies

Polish logistics firms, contractors and manufacturers already work in Ukraine and often act as the supply chain or subcontractor for international projects. The Polish national pavilion is in the 2026 catalogue. How we find and vet such partners is described on our partner sourcing in Poland and Ukraine page.

Institutions, funders and Ukrainian municipalities

The European Commission, the Enterprise Europe Network, chambers of commerce, export agencies and international financial institutions rarely sign a contract at the fair, but they explain the rules: which projects get funded, what is required from contractors and which programmes open the door. Ukrainian municipalities are a separate and very important group. In 2025 around 160 municipalities affected by the war presented reconstruction projects in the “Ukraine and its Communities” pavilion, and the official 2026 catalogue of municipal projects already lists more than 200, from energy and water supply to healthcare and digital infrastructure.

Why do most agreements get lost after a trade fair?

The pattern is familiar. On day one you hold ten conversations, a stack of business cards builds up in your pocket and by evening half the faces blur into one. Day two repeats it. Then comes the trip home, two days of backlog at the office, and the first week after the fair disappears. When you finally sit down to write, some contacts no longer remember who you are, and others have already agreed terms with whoever wrote first.

The issue is not the number of contacts. It is the missing link between a conversation and the next action. A contact’s interest peaks during the conversation and fades quickly afterwards. We look at how to turn first contacts in a new market into real conversations in entering a new market: contacts.

The value of a trade fair is set by how many conversations have a written next step with a date, not by how many conversations you had.

How do you log every meeting at the fair itself?

The simplest piece of advice, and in our experience the one with the biggest effect: log each meeting within two minutes of it ending, while you are still near the stand. Not in the hotel that evening and not on the flight home.

You no longer need to write anything by hand. Any app with AI voice transcription lets you step aside and dictate a short note. You can attach a photo of the business card to the same note and set a calendar reminder for the next step there and then. In the evening an AI assistant can merge the notes into one table. We look at other ways AI helps in B2B sales in AI in business development.

The sixth point is often underrated. A line such as “you mentioned the project launch in Lviv” puts the contact straight back into the conversation and sets your message apart from dozens of template thank-you notes.

What should you agree before each meeting ends?

It works best when a conversation does not end with “let’s stay in touch”. Before saying goodbye, agree on one specific action with a date and say out loud who will do it. The next step is usually one of these:

• An online meeting. Offer two time slots on the spot and send the calendar invite while you are still together.
• Additional materials. A presentation, specifications, reference projects or a commercial offer with a fixed send date.
• Product samples. Confirm the delivery address and the person who will receive them.
• An introduction to the decision maker. The person on the stand is often a manager, while the director who decides is not at the fair.
• A site or factory visit. In industrial and construction projects this is often the strongest argument.

It also helps to connect on LinkedIn on the spot, for example through the QR code of your profile. You stay in touch for longer, see each other’s news, and your profile works as a credibility check when the partner later shows your company to colleagues. We explain why this matters in B2B in the B2B credibility triangle.

What should you do in the first 72 hours after ReBuild Ukraine?

The first three days after the fair largely decide how many conversations reach the next stage. Here is one sequence that, in our experience, works well:

1. The same eveningReview your notes and split contacts into three groups. A: a clear need and an agreed next step. B: interest, but no timing. C: a useful acquaintance with no current request.
2. Within 24 hoursA personal message to every contact in group A: a summary of the conversation, the agreed next step with a date and every promised document. Not a template, but a message that shows you remember this particular conversation.
3. Within 72 hoursMessages to group B, accepted LinkedIn invitations for all groups, and one table or CRM with every contact: company, country, stage, next step, date.
4. After 2-4 weeksA second message to anyone who has not replied, with a new reason to write: a project update, a useful document or an invitation to an online call.

If you work with contacts in several languages, prepare message templates in English, Polish and Ukrainian before the fair. Our general approach to preparation, stand work and measuring results at trade fairs is in B2B trade fairs in Europe.

How do you turn fair contacts into a partner base?

Partnerships rarely come from a single conversation. They are built from several touchpoints: the meeting at the fair, a message, an online call, materials, another meeting. So the goal after ReBuild Ukraine is not to close a deal within a week. It is to make sure no valuable contact drops out of that chain.

It works best when preparation starts before the fair. Registration on the Enterprise Europe Network matchmaking platform is free, and on-site meetings only require an entry ticket. You can book key meetings for a fixed time and check side events around the fair. For example, Business Finland and the Estonian Chamber of Commerce and Industry are planning a separate networking event for companies and Ukrainian participants on 11 November.

After the fair, review your contact table every week for a month. A contact without a dated next step is effectively lost, however good the conversation was.