The LSE Pro-Director Professor David Webb Sent a Video Message to the Future ICEF Students

The Open Day that took place this Sunday at ICEF was full of pleasant surprises. Guests did not only become familiar with the study process, teachers, and career opportunities, but also with an outstanding alumnus and even with the LSE Pro-Director Professor David Webb, who had recorded a video message from London for this special occasion.

What makes this BSc double-degree programme’s Open Day so memorable? Medical masks, an extraordinary story by ICEF alumnus and David Webb’s speech. More than 300 people registered for the event, despite the epidemic. The event was held in 2 lecture halls. The programme’s presentation was held in two classrooms simultaneously and was led by the ICEF Director Sergey Yakovlev and the Programme Academic Supervisor Oleg Zamkov.

Even if the courses are now held online, the study process will not fall victim to the pandemiс. Moreover, ICEF as well as HSE have been elaborating and applying advanced study technologies for a few years. The students can take additional online courses, use the internal system that contains all the lectures and slides for homework, and discuss their projects with teachers and colleagues online. All the English resources of the University of London are also available to the students from their second year of studies.

After the main presentation of the study programme, ICEF graduate Dmitry Aksakov took the floor. He graduated from Oxford and Yale, had a senior position in UBS New York office and now he is the Vice-president of VEB.RF in Russia. He noted that the main advantage of the ICEF was “the intellectual fearlessness” in the face of all the challenges, such as work, science, social and private life. Dmitry also spoke about his former fellow students’ success. He said that some of the graduates have senior positions in the biggest banks all over the world. “You could ask, why they are still the second in their companies. And I say, they are already the second, and so they will very soon become the first”.

Professor David Webb, Pro-Director for Planning & Resources, and Professor of Finance

My name is Professor David Webb. I’m a Professor of Finance here at the LSE, and I’m proud to say that one of my jobs in the past was the Director of the Financial Markets Group here at the school for 18 years, and the Head of the Academic Finance Department for 6 years. More recently, I have been the Pro-Director of Planning and Resources, and the Chief Financial Officer.

I am very proud of our relationship with ICEF; it goes back quite a long way. The LSE was at the very foundation of ICEF. My colleagues Richard Jackman and Richard Layard worked with Sergey Yakovlev to found ICEF in the HSE in Moscow back in the 1990s. This was a very important time obviously for the development of the Russian economy, and we would like to think by no small means has the work that we have done through ICEF influenced the quality of economic thinking in Russia.

The ICEF is a fantastic place; I actually was fortunate enough to go there last summer. I went to the graduation ceremony, participated in that and then met staff and students of the Higher School of Economics afterwards. ICEF is a faculty that you should be very proud of, arguably the strongest economic faculty in Russia; it is one that we find extremely easy to work with.

And I have to say the greatest asset of ICEF is its students. The students of ICEF, who take the double degree (the ICEF degree together with the University of London degree), are truly outstanding. The evidence of this is their achievements. Students from ICEF have gone on to do academic programmes in the strongest institutions in the UK, in the United States and elsewhere, and quite a number now hold prestigious academic jobs in various institutions throughout the world. Others of course have gone on to work in business administration and so on.

I think that the culture of ICEF owes a great deal to the leadership of Sergey Yakovlev and his marvellous team, which has only strengthened over the years. And our relationship with ICEF through our faculty visits and involvement with the development of the curriculum is second to none in all the teaching arrangements that we have through the University of London programme. We are very proud here at the LSE of our working relationship, and it is a working relationship with ICEF.

So, students who are thinking about going to ICEF, I think we can say confidently, you are thinking about attending an outstanding institution, an institution which will give you great value going forward. Moreover, it is fairly evident that ICEF has a caring and involved faculty that will give you an outstanding overall experience, not just in terms of academic content and learning, but also in terms of pastoral support and development.

So, all I can say is that we are proud of our relationship with ICEF. I know that past students are proud of ICEF; we have witnessed that in the visit that we made last year to celebrate these achievements. And I can say confidently, that those of you who choose to go to ICEF will not regret it. We look forward eventually to meeting you in graduations in the future. The other thing is of course that ICEF has a great alumni body and you will become proud members of that should you attend the institution.