Society

Making money of insecurity is not actually a shameful endeavour, particularly if your business has an honourable mission. HSE alumnus Andrey Ruban, a psychologist and trainer, tells Success Builder how to gain entrepreneurial experience at the university, why creativity serves as the foundation of life, how word of mouth is becoming a marketing strategy, and what to do after you achieve personal happiness.

HSE alumnus Pyotr Zhukov owns two investment funds which comes as a surprise from someone with a law degree. In Success Builder Pyotr talks about bankers having nervous breakdowns, who dictates the dollar exchange rate and why he doesn’t give money to hipsters.

Nowadays, psychology has a very specific application in the world of business, as not a single large company in the world is able to get by without a staff of professional psychologists. Ksenia Babat, Senior HR Manager at Puma, tells Success Builder what a business psychologist does, how to start building a strategy for professional success as a student, and why she holds coaching sessions on the weekends.

Any budding economist would dream of rising on the career ladder to the IMF and consulting different countries’ governments on economic policy. HSE alumnus Vadim Khramov tells Success Builder how to move towards new goals, make an impact on the European economy, and put his teaching experience to use in the world of investment banking.

HSE graduate Sergei Pronin was still studying for his degree in Software Engineering when he and others designed App in the Air, promoted by Apple as a successful mobile project. Sergei now works as the leading developer at Empatika and teaches at HSE. He talked to HSE News about trends in the app market, the unique Russian language course on developing iOS apps and about the principles of teaching in the IT sphere.

A degree in philosophy does not mean you have to remain a theoretician, and there’s a way to transform basic knowledge into not only a business, but money as well. HSE graduate Ilya Menzeleev, the co-founder of the hip-hop and soul label Hustle Flower, tells Success Builder how the Silver Age of Russian Poetry fits into rhythm and blues, why Russians should love ‘black’ music, and how Aristotle helps the music business.

Starting your own business is usually a good thing, but it’s very scary, especially for someone with an honours diploma and a promising future in finance. Ekaterina Frolova, an ICEF alumna and the founder of CitYkids, a chain of children's centres, tells Success Builder why she forewent a career as a bank clerk to work with children, how to provide young moms with leisure time, and what motivates happy people.

Business is fashionable, but how do you know what your calling is? The ‘chocolate baron’ from the International College of Economics and Finance (ICEF), Oleg Guskov, told 'Success Builder' how to build a business around sweets, whether a luxurious lifestyle can motivate you to open your business, whether it’s possible to recoup investments in just a month, and why you should lure in workers from women’s magazines.

You don’t have to invent a new business model, but can simply take one and use it on an existing market with a smaller project that will work for the benefit of the Russian economy. This is what HSE alumnus Pavel Mokrushin, the owner of the café chain  Brusnika  (Lingonberry), did. He tells Success Builder why he studied at HSE after Moscow State, as well as how what he does is better than the warm chair of a clerk and how the small café is able to survive among the 66 restaurants on Maroseyka Street.

If you can explain why your project will be a success, investments in your business are guaranteed under any conditions. HSE alumnus and chairman of the board of directors at the 'R-Pharm' group, Alexey Repik, told 'Success Builder' what how to phase out of imports properly, how the government can help entrepreneurs, and how to turn extending people’s lives into a business.