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Study at HSE University, then go to Oxford and on to Yale to plumb the full depths of economics as a social science—that is the path that Dmitry Aksakov, graduate of the ICEF bachelor’s programme and now head of ESG Banking at VEB.RF has followed. In this interview with Success Builder, he explains how Mick Jagger helped him choose a university, why employers themselves seek out Oxford students, what ‘green investing’ is and how working with it can change your lifestyle.

Despite the crisis in the labour market caused by the pandemic, the Mail.ru company has hired approximately 1,000 new employees over the past six months. HSE graduate Dmitry Smyslov, the Mail.ru Group Vice President for Personnel and Educational Projects, played a central role in that process. In this interview with Success Builder, Mr Smyslov explains why there are not enough mathematicians and economists among HR directors, how Mail.ru is blurring the line between fundamental science and the IT industry, which types of specialists are in demand right now and what exactly makes Russian companies good for careerists.

Light is a perfect medium according to Marshall McLuhan, who was the first to seek a deeper understanding of electronic communications. Modern media, however, have become the means not only for conveying facts but also for managing meanings — which is why the current agenda is shaped, to some extent, by the media. Dmitry Elovsky, Deputy Chief Editor at Dozhd TV and graduate of the Applied Politics programme at HSE, told Success Builder about the media’s strength as the so-called ‘fourth estate,’ how journalism is taught in the West, why working in Russian media is the province of the young and why the risk of ‘burnout’ is so great in this country.

The Master’s Programme Lawyer on the Global Financial Market began accepting students in 2018 and graduated its first class this year. Among them was Sberbank Chief Legal Advisor Irina Gridasova. In this interview with Success Builder, Ms Gridasova explains how to switch from political science to law without missing a beat, looks at gender stereotypes in the legal field and describes translating the clerical language of contracts into the language of living and breathing clients — a task all lawyers dread.

Foreign investment plays a huge role in determining how the Russian economy will recover after its long illness. The RDIF accompanies most of those transactions. But, as HSE graduate and RDIF Investment Department Vice President Mikhail Kireev explains, the organization also has a social mission, in particular, to develop medicines and vaccines. In this interview with Success Builder, Mr Kireev also explains why HSE graduates are sought after, how the RDIF chooses companies for investment, where you can get an international degree when borders are closed and what constitutes a global education.

Technology education is just one of the areas that the RAR and its head, Alisa Konyukhovskaya, are engaged in. Thanks to this association, we are gradually ceasing to anthropomorphize robotics and the West is learning more about Russian technologies and supporting the Russian market with investments. Here, Ms Konyukhovskaya tells Success Builder how a philosopher can find her calling in technology, who makes the rules for robots and why study at HSE to learn how to manage innovations.

The airspace is becoming increasingly accessible to humans, thanks in part to HSE University graduate Alexander Atamanov and his flying motorcycles and cars. A graduate of the HSE University Master’s Programme in Corporate Research, Development and Innovation Management, he is not only an inventor and engineer but also the successful director of several startups. In this interview with Success Builder, he explains how to save inventors from the patent bureaucracy, what the Moscow authorities think about unmanned flights over the capital and why inventors prefer to test their flying cars themselves.

Audio ads in VK can drive a person crazy with their intrusiveness. What’s more, until the Instreamatic platform appeared, advertisers had been unable to evaluate user reaction to their ads. Project co-founder and HSE graduate Stas Tushinskiy now lives and works in Silicon Valley. In an interview with Success Builder, he describes today’s audio market, how our hatred of advertising is measured and what a San Francisco ‘propiska’ (residence permit) does for a business.

As reported in Forbes, DeckRobot attracted $1.5 million in seed round investments this fall. Solo founder of the project and HSE graduate Anton Urbanas, aka Tony Urban, promises to simplify life for office workers by automating PowerPoint: now AI will create the slides. In this interview with Success Builder, Mr Urbanas explained why mathematicians are in demand in the U.S. right now, what could save office staff from sleepless nights with PowerPoint, how a startup can survive ‘imposter syndrome,’ whether it is easy to be a solo founder and how to start converting ideas into money.

Dan Livshitz, who graduated from the ICEF programme with a Bachelor’s degree in 2014, began his career at 18. At 22, he was the youngest associate ever to work for McKinsey in Europe. Now a top manager with the Gett global technology platform, Mr. Livshitz explained how to make the transition from consulting to technology, the inner workings of Gett and what not to say in a job interview.