OREANDA-NEWS. The Moscow School of Management SKOLKOVO held a grand business festival dedicated to the celebration of its 10th anniversary. The jubilee festival brought together the representatives of the government, the leaders of the Russian and international business community, as well as the faculty, students, alumni, friends, and partners of the Business School. All in all, more than 1,500 guests arrived at the SKOLKOVO Campus to participate in the event.

SKOLKOVO: Herman Gref and Peter Jackson Congratulate the SKOLKOVO Business School on its 10th Anniversary

SKOLKOVO Business School Today

Having started with a dream and a sketch on a napkin, the partners and associates managed to create the largest private business school in Russia and the CIS in only 10 years.

Today, the SKOLKOVO Business School boasts of:

  • more than 1,500 alumni of degree programmes;
  • more than 12,000 students of corporate programmes;
  • approximately 100 customer companies;
  • more than 100 studies in various fields, such as education, urban studies, business digitalisation, and financial institutions;
  • five research centres, which are engaged in the study of the most topical issues of different industries, provide consulting services, offer educational programmes, as well as contribute to the formation of the educational agenda of the entire School;
  • special entrepreneurship training programmes specially designed for schoolchildren and the elderly;
  • development programmes: the Business School has trained 27 management teams from Russian single-industry towns; the School is the operator of the state Global Education Programme; and the Deans School established at the Business School provides training for management teams of the country's leading universities; and
  • a network of international partnerships: the School collaborates with 150 professors of international business schools and has a unique faculty of lecturers and practitioners—1,300 guest experts in various areas, from politics to sports, from around the world.

Next 10 Years, or How Did It All Start

The SKOLKOVO Business School has reached a new stage in its development, at which its key tasks are to concentrate the accumulated intellectual capital and to become an educational hub for Russia and the CIS. These objectives were the topic of the panel discussion Next 10 Years, or How Did It All Start, attended by Herman Gref, President and Chairman of the Executive Board of Sberbank, Ruben Vardanyan, entrepreneur and philanthropist, Deputy Chairman of the SKOLKOVO International Advisory Board, Vladimit Mau, Dean of the Academy of National Economy under the Government of the Russian Federation, Andrei Volkov, the first Dean of the SKOLKOVO Business School, and Andrei Sharonov, President of the School.

The discussion participants recalled the tasks which they had been setting for themselves 10 years ago, when conceiving the School, and arrived at the opinion that those tasks were still relevant. Being in the top ten world's best business schools and becoming a truly international educational institution are the targets to be pursued. Andrei Volkov remarked that the Business School's key work principle remains unchanged, and it is this principle that favours achievement of the goals set: "Preparing the students for the things not being in existence yet rather than preparing them for the existing things".

Ruben Vardanyan, who stood at the origins of the Business School, which began systemic changes in Russia's business education, said, "This is a mercy because in 2002, when the idea of creating the School was just discussed, that seemed to be an unrealisable dream. But everything became possible owing to the partners who stood at the origins, who trusted each other, and were ready to go into the unexplored. There are five-year milestones in the School's life. The first five years were to ground the dream, make it tangible. The second five years were to create an effective business model. Now we have reached the stage when we should concentrate all our efforts on the educational component which has not been entirely formed as yet. In the next five years, as it seems to me, the School should be developing its internationality and globality: the whole world is interconnected, and it is not enough to be only focused on one country. Lying in store for the School are strongest challenges which offer unique opportunities. The demographic challenge implies that we will have to fit into the global economy rather than concentrate on the domestic market; a serious generational change—the door is opened for the students to prove that they are ready to become a political and economic elite; the need to attract external financial and human resources to Russia because the internal resources are insufficient; and inevitability of the business rearrangement towards capitalisation, otherwise we will not be efficient. Efficiency and competitiveness are the primary challenges for the School."

Herman Gref congratulated the Business School on its birthday and wished the School would chart its own course: "I do not know another example of the kind in our country when such a number of people have invested their own money, understanding that it would not be regained, but the emotional returns would last for many years. The School is now at a critical stage, from the phase of establishing to the phase of fulfilment of its initial task of being in the top ten world's best business schools. I wish the School would open itself up and feel wings in place of arms, create such an atmosphere when the School and its students would be able to fly."

Andrei Rappoport, member of the Coordination Council of the Moscow School of Management SKOLKOVO, the second President of the School, commented, "We can observe the development of a powerful educational hub at Skolkovo, which comprises the Business School, NES, and Skoltech, and our School aspires to be its leader. Our School has created a platform for entrepreneurs and businessmen, while NES trains mathematicians and economists, and Skoltech—technologists. We believe that the synergy of three components is bound to be effective. Our students are full of energy, they are enthusiastic about business projects, but very often they lack knowledge of the areas where they would like to implement them, and do not always have sufficient competence in the relevant subject. In Skoltech, vice versa, there are brilliant engineers who need to learn how to raise money, plan budgets, build teams, deal with organisational and other issues, and to maintain effective relationships with the government. The next stage in our development, in our view, must be a time of transformation into an integral and organised entity. We are bringing together engineers, economists, and entrepreneurs and intend to build a considerable number of such partnerships."

SKOLKOVO Community

By tradition, the festival day started cheerfully, with sports activities. In the morning, the best minds put on their running shoes and ran the SKOLKOVO Mile—2,006 metres across the territory of the SKOLKOVO Campus. The race was opened by Andrei Sharonov, President of the School, who held a workout for all the participants. The Mile was won by Ilya Slepov, an alumnus of the Executive MBA, with the result of 6 minutes 9 seconds, which became the record of the race. Renat Dasaev and Ilnar Ismagilov, a future student of the Practicum, took the second and third places, respectively. In total, 99 persons took part in the race.

The programme of the Business Festival included more than 20 events: meetings with alumni, business games, workshops, presentations, interactive discussions, round tables, marathons, and testing. Most of the business activities were organised by SKOLKOVO alumni themselves.

  • The SKOLKOVO Women Association held an interactive discussion about women's entrepreneurship, during which successful representatives of business and SKOLKOVO students talked about their own projects.
  • Vitaly Polekhin, an alumnus of the Executive MBA, brought together private investors and representatives of the leading venture capital funds for a meeting of the SKOLKOVO Investor Club in order to assess the prospects of the venture capital investment market.
  • The session of the SKOLKOVO Club of Independent Directors was organised by Tatiana Olifirova, an alumnae of the SKOLKOVO Executive MBA. The participants talked about corporate governance in the digital age and discussed the practical aspects of the work of a board of directors in the new environment.
  • Pavel Bilenko, an alumnus of the SKOLKOVO Executive MBA, the head of the SKOLKOVO Construction Association, held a session titled Next 10 Years in the Industry and Construction, during which the heads of construction companies shared their ideas as to where to get advanced technologies and how to automate the life cycle of a production company.
  • The session The Search for Business Growth was prepared by Anna Vasilenko, SKOLKOVO Executive MBA alumnae, with the support of the Moscow Exchange.

Brotherhood of Dreams

The dream of SKOLKOVO's founding partners to build an advanced business school in Russia has taken physical shape and gained solid intellectual capital. Moreover, it has become a financially sustainable business. One should not be afraid to challenge the time, take risks, make unconventional decisions, and to put everything at stake—the history knows many examples when the reckless faith in a dream became a key to success. We can find such examples in absolutely different areas. Peter Jackson, one of the most prominent directors of our time, known for his film adaptation of the books The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, made his first trip to Russia to join the celebration of the 10th anniversary of SKOLKOVO. He participated in the discussion Brotherhood of Dreams, where he told the audience how to build a successful business by following one's dream. While sharing his experience, the New Zealand film director remarked "I was lucky. The dream I had in the childhood is still with me: it is making films. I dream of stories which I would like to put to the screen. I do not really do business but derive pleasure from the cinema. In fact, I make a film for myself, so that it would be to my liking. This is, certainly, selfish, I don't conduct surveys and don't find out how other people regard the film. But I try to transfer all my fantasies, in layman's language, from my head to the film, so that the audience could also derive the same pleasure as me. I try to spark the interest in my script of those people who work with me. For example, for my films I needed not only operators, directors, other technical staff but also florists, canvas carpet makers, and many professionals from various activity areas. I want them to be also glad to carry on, after waking up in the morning, the film production and to share their ideas with me. Thus, I try to arouse creativity even in those people who are not particularly concerned with that. These people and I try to tell the story that will be comprehensible for all."

Vadim Dymov, the founder and Chairman of the Board of Directors of Dymov Company, Alexander Rodnyansky, President of AR Films, Dmitry Grishin, Chairman of the Board of Directors, co-founder and CEO of Mail.ru Group, the founder of Grishin Robotics, talked with Peter Jackson about dreams and how to realise them. The meeting was moderated by Mikhail Kusnirovich, member of the Coordination Council of the SKOLKOVO Business School, Chairman of the Supervisory Board at Bosco di Ciliegi Group of Companies.

АAlexander Rodnyansky also discoursed on a director's dream and chances of its realisation, on the difference between the Hollywood and Russian cinema: "Film production in Russia is a local business, as in majority of other non-English speaking countries. We have to overcome a great number of barriers, while the Hollywood studios have the opportunity to tell universal stories. Our task is to overcome the borders anyway, without compromising our principles, and to learn to make the global Russian cinema."

SKOLKOVO Alumni Fair: 10 for 10

SKOLKOVO alumni also follow their dreams. As part of the jubilee business festival, they held the SKOLKOVO Alumni Fair—the fair of the brightest and most inspiring projects created by the School's alumni over the past 10 years. The Vision Labs face recognition system, Bite fruit bars, SPLAT solutions for oral care, IRONSTAR—the organisation of sporting events, Profilum—a service for individual selection of programmes for additional education, Motorika—the production of highly functional traction prostheses and myoelectric hand designs, Hoff furniture network, LPGenerator—a lead generation platform, MULTiKUBIK—the creation of mini-projectors with pre-installed content for children and adults, Winning the Hearts business forums—these are only a few of the projects developed by the Business School alumni.

Jubilee Graduation Ceremony

The traditional ceremony of awarding diplomas to the School's alumni was held as part of the business festival. The SKOLKOVO Alumni Community was joined by 134 students of two Executive MBA groups, the groups of the Practicum for Directors and Startup Academy. The ceremony was attended by Andrei Rappoport, member of the Coordination Council of the Business School, Andrei Volkov, Professor of Management at SKOLKOVO, and Andrei Sharonov, President of the Business School, as well as School’s professors Moty Cristal and Tomas Casas.