SIBUR will Hold a Leadership Code Forum for Amur Oblast’s Entrepreneurs

30 april 2021

Leadership Code, a business forum for representatives of small and medium enterprises, as well as for those who are only planning to set up a business of their own, will take place in Blagoveshensk on May 12 and 13, and in Svobodny, on May 13 and 14. The event will be supported by SIBUR within the framework of the Formula for Good Deeds, the company's social investment program, and by Amur Oblast's Ministry of Economic Development and External Relations.

The forum’s mission is to facilitate growth of small businesses by promoting a special administrative and tax environment for their operations. By launching and implementing new entrepreneurial projects the forum can help turn cities into a more convenient place for their residents, as well as encourage aspiring entrepreneurs to establish their own businesses. All events of the Leadership Code forum strive to help develop, finance and implement new solutions to attack the region’s social, cultural and environmental challenges.

The forum’s program includes lectures, seminars and round tables focusing on issues of pressing importance, as well as business games that help develop leadership and entrepreneurial skills. The list of speakers will include leading experts and professors of finance, business law, marketing, information technology and entrepreneurship psychology. Forum participants will be able to not only listen to their speeches, but to also ask their own specific questions about doing business.

Dmitry Grits, a PhD in law, managing partner of legal firm Grits and Partners, author of a book entitled A Business Advocate, and speaker at TEDx, Be-in Open, Blockchain Russian Week conferences will give a talk about various legal aspects of running a small business, and, specifically, about joint ownership based on a partnership agreement, as well as about the best ways of owning a business.

Dmitry Dmitriyev, a business consultant, MBA lecturer at RANEPA, Moscow State University, CityBusinessSchool, and the Moscow International Higher School of Business MIRBIS, will hold a strategic session titled How to Make Money Through Knowledge of Human Psychology, as well as a coaching session titled How to Start a Business and How to Grow It.

Ekaterina Vereshchagina, Head of Strategic Communications Agency will present techniques for developing successful PR strategies, while Evgeny Klimov, CTO of Interfax and an expert of Skolkovo’s IT cluster ,will talk about key trends in digitalization and IT technology in the small business segment.

In addition to attending these educational sessions, participants of the forum will get introduced to real cases of successful business launches. Founders and owners of thriving businesses will demonstrate their own cases and share practical advice on how to take the first steps to starting one’s own business.

Oksana Selendeyeva, the founder of CODDY, a programming school, will share her experience with overseeing a project grow to an international-level endeavor, and will talk about building a franchise business. Maria Znova, Radisson Hotel Group’s Business Development Director will make a presentation about a hotel business management strategy.

In turn, founders of local entrepreneurship practices will share their experiences with starting their own businesses while focusing on organizational, administrative, financial and legal aspects of running a business in the region.

The forum’s program includes a series of activities designed for entertaining children. The Children's Day will take place on May 14 in the city of Svobodny. The youngest attendees will be able to attend a career guidance event titled How to Choose Your Career Path, a game called An Atlas of Professions, and several informative lectures: How to Convert a Hobby into a Business?, Professions of the Future, and Internet of Things.

There are more than 26,000 private businesses operating in the Amur Region and we are certainly interested in watching this figure grow year after year, Lyudmila Starkova, Minister of Economic Development and External Relations of Amur Oblast, noted. Businesses help create new jobs, forge well-established and stable communities for hundreds of thousands of the region’s residents, and make our environment more comfortable in all aspects, big and small. Amur Oblast has created a well-functioning infrastructure meant to support small businesses. Just last year alone, it helped 11,000 entrepreneurs to set up and develop their businesses more effectively. And it is very encouraging to note that, in addition to state support measures, new large-scale programs and platforms such as Leadership Code are being created to help popularize entrepreneurship and to provide training to fledgling businessmen.

While a good business idea is an important component of success, it is far from the only one. To see it through to fruition, one needs to have the requisite knowledge and support, and, quite often, not only and not so much financial as advisory support: advice on how to make the first steps, who to go to, what formalities need to be complied with, etc. says Dmitry Dmitriev, a business consultant. Our goal is to, first, share proven successful practices, skills, and advice for building a successful business with the entrepreneurs, and, secondly, to encourage their development and search for new opportunities, which is especially important now, after the recent lockdowns have forced all of us to look in a different light at ways of doing business, and to master new tools, including digital tools.

This forum was supposed to have taken place last year, but due to pandemic-caused restrictions we decided not to switch to an online format and instead chose to wait for an opportunity to hold face-to-face meetings, says Stanislav Kasparov, Director of Business Support Services in SIBUR's Presence Regions. Why was it so important? Because our goals go beyond just conveying information to the forum’s participants. We want to create an inspiring atmosphere to encourage them to come up with new ideas and look for non-standard and effective solutions. Another objective is to inspire Amur Oblast’s business community to get involved in creating a comfortable environment and raising the standards of living in the region.

To register for the forum, one needs to visit our site at http://kodliderstva.ru/

The Forum will be held at the following venues:

• May 12-13, Blagoveshchensk – Tochka Kipeniya, A Collaborative Work Hub
• May 13-14, Svobodny – Educational Center IT-cube