‘Professional Curiosity Is Key to Career Growth’
HSE School of Finance graduate Nikita Zubkov is certain that there are limitless opportunities for increasing margins in the industry and that students should pay more attention to the real sector. In this interview with Success Builder, Zubkov explained the difference between an industrial trader and a bank trader, why you need research skills at work and how to work hand-in-hand with AI.
‘Studying Economics at HSE Helped Me Become an Artist’
When the concept of ‘lifelong learning’ becomes the norm, it is no longer in the spirit of the times to just take it easy after receiving that coveted diploma. Leonid Ilyukhin earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the HSE Faculty of Economic Sciences and now lectures in the fine arts at the Vivarium Novum Academy in Rome. In this interview with Success Builder, Mr. Ilyukhin explains how he converted mathematical thinking into artistic expression—and became an expert in the field to boot.
‘Retail Combines Everything I Love and Continue Doing’
Maria Zolotkova, holder of a bachelor’s degree from ICEF, believes that an education in economics provides the foundation needed to manage brands on the market and be a truly effective marketing professional. She currently works as the Vice President for Brand Development at Azbuka Vkusa. In this interview with Success Builder, she explains why FMCG is the best marketing school, what a brand manager does and how to go from being a customer to one of the directors of your favourite store.
‘The Agricultural Industry Needs Young Personnel’
Andrey Kucherov became interested in the agro-industrial complex while still a bachelor’s student, choosing this industry as the focus of his final research paper. He is currently the head of the Department for Strategic Communications and Promotion of Agro-Industrial Products at the Agroexport Federal Centre under the Russian Foreign Ministry. In this interview with Success Builder, Mr Kucherov explained why the Social Sciences Faculty is the ideal foundation for a marketing expert, whether civil service work is easy and how Russia will feed Africa.
‘All Economics Students Should Learn to Program’
Yakov Barinskiy, who holds a bachelor’s degree from the International College of Economics and Finance (ICEF) at HSE, puts his degree in finance to good use in the field of crypto investment. His success running the HASH CIB crypto bank shows students that fundamental education in economics remains relevant even as fintech develops. In this interview with Success Builder, Mr Barinskiy explains why you should work in a good company before launching your own business and what the Russian authorities are doing to legalise digital assets.
‘Academia Has Always Impressed Me with Its Freedom’
At HSE University, Georgiy Sunyaev has gone from undergrad to graduate and researcher. He is now completing his PhD and has co-authored a global study on trust in vaccines. In this interview with Success Builder, he explains why a bachelor’s in economics is the best foundation for studying the social sciences, how to study a political regime dispassionately and how to speed up the vaccination process in Russia.
.jpg "‘HSE Instructors Are the Kind of Specialists You Usually Only Dream of Meeting’")
‘HSE Instructors Are the Kind of Specialists You Usually Only Dream of Meeting’
Anna-Marie Sargsyan not only graduated with honours from the Master’s programme Marketing Communications and Advertising in Modern Business but also went on to teach the course and later opened a business school in her native Armenia where she teaches future marketing professionals. In this interview with Success Builder, she explains why foreign students choose HSE University programmes, why a marketing professional always has an ‘ethnic’ aspect and how a business can find a common language with clients who have seen it all.
‘The Opportunity to Study at an International Level Has Played a Major Role in My Career’
Anatoly Braverman graduated with a bachelor’s degree from the ICEF programme in 2006, received invaluable experience conducting deals at a major Russian oil company and personally witnessed the history of investments in the Russian economy by becoming one of the first employees of the RDIF in 2011. In this interview with Success Builder, Mr Braverman explains why international education is especially useful when working for the betterment of the Russian economy, the nature of ‘anti-virus’ investments and how the RDIF directed them towards the development of the Sputnik V vaccine, and much more.
‘The Academic Profession Is Such That It Takes a Lifetime to Grasp Fully’
Alexey Parakhonyak graduated from HSE in 2004 and now works as an associate professor at Lincoln College, Oxford. In this interview with Success Builder, Mr Parakhonyak explained why HSE attracted the best professors right from the start, how Erasmus University teaches its PhD students, how to win students’ hearts and what, besides the university, makes the city of Oxford interesting.
‘A Good Chief Editor Is Constantly Learning New Things and Thinks of the Editorial Office as a Living Organism’
Choosing a specific subject to major in at a university does not mean you will never become a ‘specialist with a broad profile’. Vladimir Todorov, graduate of the HSE Oriental Studies bachelor’s programme, once studied and worked in China, but has leveraged that international experience to build a successful career as a journalist and now works as chief editor of the Lenta.ru portal. In this interview with Success Builder, he explains how an ex-pat can earn a living in China, why HSE teaches students about the ‘living’ East and how to ‘retool’ from Sinologist to journalist.
Deadline for applications to present academic reports - January 20, 2025