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In the pursuit of digital projects, interesting business niches sometimes go unfilled. Higher School of Economics graduate Mikhail Pakhomov, founder and CEO of Cosmodrome Games, turned an analog project into a profitable venture. He told Success Builder how board games are created, how to turn a hobby into a source of income, and how to buck the trend towards all things digital.

When a new direction is being formed in the market, it’s possible to recognize the hype, create the rules yourself, and get rich on your own creativity. In the latest edition of Success Builder, the director of media product development at Russian social networking site VKontakte, Arseniy Ashomko, discusses what the advertising industry looks like from the inside, how the law is useful in any field, and what makes the company VKontakte special besides the juice bar and gym.

Last year, HSE launched its new joint course with Mail.ru called Communications in IT, where the head of RBC Group’s press centre, Egor Timofeev, was an invited speaker. In the latest edition of Success Builder, Egor talks about how the roles of a journalist and a PR specialist differ, why media is hard work, how to fight fake news, and how to be part of a brand on social media.

HSE graduates have launched a programme that will annually award winners of the Student Research Paper Competition in those subject areas in which the university is an international leader.

HSE students participated in Creation Lab, an annual international business hackathon, which is organized as part of the World Business Dialogue in Cologne. The forum’s partner educational, power and retail businesses will implement the best of the suggested solutions in their operations.

Ekaterina Kolchina, a graduate of ICEF and London Business School, is currently the deputy CEO of Papa John’s Russia. An education in economics certainly came in handy for this. In the latest edition of Success Builder, Ekaterina talks about the human side of consulting, stereotypes about the restaurant business, and taste-related aspects of working at a pizzeria.

Alina Pertseva, who earned her PhD in Philosophy from the Doctoral School of Philosophy at HSE in 2017, defended her dissertation at two universities at once — HSE and the University of Paris VIII. In an interview with the HSE news service, Pertseva discussed how she managed to do this and how the Russian and French approaches to research differ.

The profession of a trader has an aura of mystery around it. These are people with a wonderful salary who have the privilege of being part of a small community of professionals. In the latest edition of Success Builder, Denis Gribov, a trader for Bank of America Merrill Lynch, talks about how to use your own savings to break into trading, as well as how to keep your emotions at bay, trade during lunchtime, and compete with artificial intelligence.

In order to manage a company successfully, one has to truly love what the company does. In the latest edition of Success Builder, Victoria Rydina, the head of the communications division at AgroTerra Group and a graduate of HSE’s MBA programme, talks about the charm of agriculture, the secrets of ‘non-GMO’ labels, a healthy corporate lifestyle, unmanned combine harvesters, and agronomists with tablets.

The annual reception for outstanding HSE alumni took place on December 7 at Saltykovy-Chertkovy House. The jury awarded alumni in six nominations.