Vasily Solodkov — 55

On February 17, Vasily Solodkov, Director of the HSE Banking Institute, celebrated his 55th birthday.

Vasily Solodkov has been at the Higher School of Economics for nearly twenty years, and is the founder and director of the Banking Institute, one of the university’s oldest business schools. Prior to joining HSE, Solodkov studied banking for several years in Luxembourg and at Harvard, the world’s top business school.

Created in 1998, the Banking Institute initially offered short seminars and individual professional training programmes. As the years passed, it significantly increased the number of partners and educational projects.

Compliance with international quality standards is a prerequisite when it comes to launching educational programmes at the Banking Institute. The first foreign partner to launch a joint programme in bank management with the Institute was the Amsterdam Academy of Banking and Finance. Joint professional training projects were later launched with the Bank of Russia. In 2009, an agreement was signed with the CFA Institute, one of the world’s largest associations of investment professionals.

‘This cooperation has allowed us to better understand the needs of employers today’, said Solodkov. ‘In creating our educational programmes, we have primarily relied on research by the CFA Institute’.

Today, the two programmes run by the Banking Institute (the MA Financial Analyst programme and the MBA Investment Management programme) are official partners of the CFA Institute. These are the only programmes of such kind in eastern Europe.

In addition to leading the Banking Institute, Solodkov teaches in HSE’s Faculty of Economics and heads its Department of Banking. Professor Solodkov is the author of several academic articles and the co-author of several books, including a large publication on the history of the banking system in the Russian Empire.

Best wishes for a Happy Birthday!