‘We Do Not Limit Ourselves to a Narrow Circle of Well-Known Universities’

The HSE International College of Economics and Finance is preparing for its fourth enrolment of students in the master’s programme in Financial Economics. Maxim Nikitin, Academic Supervisor of the Programme and Professor in Ordinary at the HSE, told us about the course.

- Maxim Igorevich, what's new with the ICEF master's programme?

- We are constantly growing and developing:the number of students rise, new courses appear, new professors arrive. For example, in February 2010 Brian Eales from London Metropolitan University taught an intensive one-week course on the practical application of derivatives. He developed that course for people working in the City of London. And now he is delivering it to our students. From February-April 2010 a course by Vyacheslav Ivanov, Head of the International Business Department at Gazpromneft, was introduced into the curriculum. Last year this course was supplementary, but it was so popular that we decided to include it in the basic programme. In Autumn 2010 Fabian Slonimchik, Ph.D graduate of Massachusetts University, USA, will teach the HSE's first course in econometrics.

- Are there any differences between the ICEF master's course and other HSE master's programmes in economics and finance?

- The main difference is the international format of our programme. The curriculum and programmes of particular courses were developed in collaboration with experts from the London School of Economics;all basic courses are taught by professors with a Ph.D degree from a leading European or U.S. university;these external experts also take part in examinations. The courses are taught in English and, upon graduation, students get a HSE master's diploma together with a certificate signed by Howard Davies, Director of the LSE, confirming that the programme is in line with the high academic standards of the LSE. Secondly, our programme offers a unique combination of fundamental and applied courses in economics as well as in finance. And finally, we follow the traditions of leading international universities and avoid the unnecessary specialization which is present in many programmes of the Faculty of Economics, particularly in finance.

- Why is it so important to teach in English?

- Just imagine that you graduate and want to find employment at Goldman Sachs, or Morgan Stanley, or Boston Consulting Group. Even if you are planning to work in the Moscow office, you'll have to pass through an interview and assessment in English. And of course education in English will give you a great advantage when compared to those candidates who only study in Russian.

- Is it true that the LSE Director gives a lecture at ICEF every year?

- That's true! For the first time, LSE Director Howard Davies came to ICEF in November 2008. Then he gave a public lecture, met students, and he liked it here. He came again in December 2009, and we are expecting to welcome him back again in November 2010.

- And is there an opportunity for ICEF master's students to attend any courses at the LSE?

- Every year we send the two best ICEF master's students (according to the cumulative rating) to the LSE Summer School. All expenses (education, accommodation, air ticket, visa etc.) are covered by the ICEF budget.

- It is well known that it is difficult to study at ICEF because of the high requirements of students'knowledge in mathematics:there is a lot of ‘mathematicated'theory. What is it for? Wouldn't it be better to make the programme more practical, to give students skills which are in demand in the Russian labour market, and at the same time make it available for a higher number of potential students?

- This question is quite a complex one, and so my answer will be too!. Firstly, there are many applied courses in our programme, There are several courses on valuation of companies and other assets:Vyacheslav Ivanov's course on Corporate Valuation Cases in Mergers and Acquisitions, Investment Analysis, Strategic Financial Management, as well as courses on International Financial Management, on debt and derivative financial instruments and on risk management. Next year we are planning to broaden the teaching of risk management and to deliver a separate course on credit risk and liquidity management in commercial banks. Secondly, modern ‘practical'finance and, primarily everything that has to do with risk management, financial engineering, investment portfolio management etc. require a very advanced knowledge of mathematics. It is not for nothing that in 1990s and 2000s leading international investment banks started to actively hire Ph.D holders in math and physics! Incidentally, one of them is now teaching in the ICEF master's programme. His name is Leonid Timoshuk, and he received his Ph.D in computational mathematics from the Delft University of Technology, Netherlands, and then worked for a long time in the City of London, including work at Goldman Sachs where he reached the position of Vice President, and Calyon (investment banking branch of a French bank Credit Agricole). He is now an Executive Director at UBS and is teaching market risk management at the ICEF. And thirdly, have you ever wondered why in moat of the leading universities around the world students are tortured with theory, ‘detached from life', but then employers compete for these graduates? This situation occurs in many countries of the world, and includes the LSE, and in the Russian Economic School. The fact is that those people whose brains are trained with theory are able to master information and acquire new skills much faster than those who haven't been ‘tortured'.

- It seems that last year it was not so easy for university graduates to find a job. Did your master's programme graduates have any problems?

- That's true:last year the situation in the labour market for young specialists was catastrophic. Banks, commercial as well as investment, and other financial institutions made mass redundancies. Thousands of experienced experts suddenly found themselves back on the labour market. What was it like to find a job for an inexperienced graduate? But I'm happy to say that all our graduates who sought employment found a job! Out of our 16 initial graduates, 14 were successfully working in October 2009. Two were not employed, but they had other priorities. About a half of the first class of graduates is now working in the financial sphere (VTB-Kapital, Trast, Central Bank of Russia, Sberbank and other organizations). One of the graduates, Vitaliy Fedoseev, is combining his work in ‘Spektr Invest'investment company with trying to create a hedge fund.

- Is he competing with George Soros?

- Not yet! When Leonid Timoshuk, whom I mentioned above, came to Moscow to read a course on market risk management for our students, he started discussing a strategy for a hedge fund with Vitaliy! Then they found an investor, who agreed to assign some start up capital to ‘test'this strategy. And now they are working on it.

- What about the other graduates?

- Several people are working in business:RosNano, Sibur, and Renault. The best graduate of 2009, Svetlana Bryzgalova, is continuing her education with a Ph.D programme in Economics at the LSE. Incidentally, she was offered a place at couple of other universities, including Oxford and the London Business School, and was offered a full scholarship, but she chose the LSE.

- How are the 2010 graduates doing?

- They are also fine. One of them, Milan Martinovich, will study for a Ph.D in Finance at the LSE. Many graduates are already working in the financial sector:HSBC, Citigroup, Sberbank, Rosbank, ROSNO. Artem Poteshkin, a 2010 graduate, was hired by the investment banking department of Barclays Capital bank in London.

- In London? How did he do that?

- He sent his CV from Moscow, then was invited for an interview to London, and shortly - in July he is starting his work there. I'm sure that mentioning the LSE in his CV helped him

- Do ICEF graduates have any advantages when enrolling for the master's programme and with financial support?

- We do not give any preference to ICEF graduates. In 2009 out of 32 students of the programme only 5 were ICEF graduates, and only one of them received a scholarship:the others paid in full for their education. Some of the ICEF graduates failed to pass the entry competition where 3 candidates competed for each place.

- Why do so few ICEF graduates proceed to the master's course?

- It is common practice in my countries for graduates of one university to go to the master's programme of another. We at ICEF are pleased that our best graduates proceed to the master's programme of the LSE, Oxford or other international universities. According to a recent survey of HSE student life, ICEF is the only faculty where more than half the graduates aim to continue their education in a master's programme abroad. Some of our graduates continue studying in the HSE master's programmes. For example, 20 of our graduates entered the master's course this year at the Faculty of Economics.

- Where do graduates on the ICEF master's course come from?

- About half of them are HSE graduates:ICEF, Faculties of Economics and Business Informatics, and regional branches. The rest come from Moscow State University, Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology and Novosibirsk University. I'd like to emphasize that we do not limit ourselves to a narrow circle of well-known universities. Every year we take several people from lesser known universities. Not all of them ‘survive'our programme, but we take this risk consciously, as we want to broaden the ‘geography'of the ICEF master's course. For example, in 2010 a graduate of Odessa National University is completing our programme.