Society

Despite the fact that written texts are losing to visual imagery in today’s media, people who have a way with words are still in high demand. In the latest edition of Success Builder, Pavel Sokolov, a graduate of the HSE Faculty of Communications, Media, and Design and the editor-in-chief of the Eksmo publishing house website, discusses what is currently happening in the world of books, what comprises the duty of a Russian intellectual, and how to be both a manager and a playwright.

Oleg Kononov, who graduated from the HSE FIFA / CIES programme in 2018 and previously headed Arsenal Tula, has been appointed head coach of FC Spartak Moscow.

The Moscow metro has launched a big educational project ‘Hello, Moscow!’ (Priviet, Moskva!). This will turn the Moscow transport system into a ‘guide’, telling the passengers about the city in various contexts, and making the everyday commute a more useful and interesting journey. The project creators include HSE staff and alumna.

As Russia’s digital economy gains momentum, participants of the sporadic market of digital services need to pave a path for success using their experience, professional instincts, and basic knowledge. In the latest edition of Success Builder, CreativePeople Director Sergei Prokofiev discusses what it’s like to build a business alongside other HSE alumni, how to protect designers and monetise creativity, and what one should learn in order to find a job in the digital sphere.

Igor Artamonov, a graduate of the MBA Finance programme, which was developed by HSE for Sberbank, has been appointed Acting Governor of the Lipetsk Region.

The world is digitising. This is not a simple process for the media, as ‘ordinary’ reality and digital reality are two different worlds, themselves separate from a magazine. Trifon Bebutov, Esquire Russia’s Digital Editorial Director and a graduate of HSE’s continuing education programme in graphic design, met with Success Builder to talk about what responsibilities his job entails, what exactly ‘paper aesthetics’ means, and how bad packaging can kill amazing content.

This spring we found out that it takes 56,000 LEGO bricks to build an eight-meter-high model of the Titanic and that after more than half a decade, people still aren’t sick of putting together simple pieces of plastic. Sergey Kozlov, a graduate of ICEF and currently LEGO’s operations director in Seoul, told Success Builder why he likes moving, why the Christiansens’ family business doesn’t fire people, and whether or not he gets to play with LEGO bricks at his desk.

Gulnaz Khusainova is a graduate of the HSE Faculty of Business and Management and the founder of the project Easysize, an online platform that helps online retailers reduce the number of returns. This year Gulnaz made it to Forbes’ list of the most prospective young entrepreneurs in Europe. In the latest edition of Success Builder, she talks about why programming is necessary for someone with a startup, what ‘sustainable fashion’ means, and how this all affects the well-being of Bangladeshi seamstresses.

HSE alumna Daria Rebenok and her husband founded the online service Grabr, which combines Daria’s love for shopping and travel. This service allows clients to place orders with travellers who agree to bring back an item that cannot be purchased online from a certain country. In the latest edition of Success Builder, Daria talks about the magic of shopping, the different aspects of Silicon Valley, the importance of Russian programmers, and the future of the remote employment market.

Elena Okorochenko, Managing Director of Asia-Pacific Ratings at S&P Global Ratings, is not only a graduate of HSE’s first class of students; she has also contributed to the formation of the university as a whole. In the latest edition of Success Builder, Elena tells us how she only changed companies twice throughout her entire career, as well as how she manages a regional S&P Global division, shares her colleagues’ love for Asian cuisine, and never finds herself in a traffic jam in Singapore because they just don’t exist.