Dmitry Baykov is alumnus of the first MBA program of the Graduate School of Management of St. Petersburg University, shared his memories of studying at GSOM, working at the University, and also spoke about the main secret of successful business. 

Until 2004, Dmitry worked as a Marketing Director at the “Lanit-Terkom” IT company. From 2004 to 2017, he went from a Development Director to the General Director of the “Lubimy Krai” confectionery association. Today Dmitry is the General Director of the “Aztec” confectionery factory.

 

Photo source – RBK

 

 

Which of the qualities, knowledge and skills acquired during your studies at the University was most useful for you? How do they help you in solving business cases?

I am an alumnus of the first MBA program at GSOM SPbU. Actually, the entire MBA program is a two-year training on solving business problems. And although professors taught us — Nikolai V. Raskov, David I. Barkan, Sergey A. Starov, Nikolai A. Zenkevich and others, in the process of working with my fellow students I learned about the business no less than from the legendary professors.

The most important thing that I learned is to work on very difficult tasks in teams with outstanding people. The creation of such teams is now my most important secret of successful business, the key to achieving outstanding results.

 

Are you familiar with the organization of the educational process at St. Petersburg University today? And how do you see your cooperation with SPbU?

I got to the University as a lecturer, and then I became a GSOM SPbU student. By my first education I am a programmer and at the end of the 90s I worked at the Lanit-Terkom company. Andrei Terekhov, General Director of the company and at the same time the Head of the Department of System Programming, was my first teacher in business. At the same time Nikolai Kriulin became Head of the Department of Information Management, and he invited me to give lectures at the intersection of IT and marketing. The main thing is what I want to do is continue to share in lectures everything that I learned in practice. And despite the fact that it was not very convenient for me to go from Peterhof to Vasilyevsky Island for lectures, over time I realized why I agreed to this.

The end of the 1990s — it was an absolutely wonderful time in the life of the Faculty of Management, the formation of curricula and the era of absolutely outstanding students. Konstantin Krotov was one of my students, and today he is Head of School.

In 2000 the first MBA program opened, and if I had not been a lecturer, I would never have known about it. Therefore, when Nikolai M. Kropachev during our meeting at the Reunion offered to participate in the educational process, and I did not hesitate for a minute. Today as the CEO of a rapidly growing company, I will not take up the whole course, but hold various workshops, help design curricula or work with last-year students — I will find time with great interest and pleasure. I always liked to share in the audience what I learned in practice.

 

Are there any University alumni among your employees? What do you think about their work and educational level?

Among my employees there are many University alumni. They compare favorably with other alumni, even very advanced educational institutions. They have spacious mind, ease in finding and implementing solutions based on a university scientific approach. They also have less fear, like children who grew up in a good family. They are internally confident that with a university level of education they can always find the best and most interesting place in their life.

 

Why do you think employers' representatives should be on the boards of educational programs?

For all applied and social disciplines, business provides real cases that many companies now have to solve. This makes it possible to design and implement programs fastly, long before these stories are processed and packaged in classic training cases. And this gives alumni the opportunity to immediately enter the business as real workers, not trainees.

 

Do you plan to take part in the work of one of the Advisory Boards of the St. Petersburg University educational program or to join the state examination commission in the direction of Economics and Management?

Yes, as far as possible. In business, we are always in a chaotic reality. Sometimes it is very necessary to go to another environment to look at ourselves from the outside, to generalize our experience and send a request, no, not to the universe, but to the best university, which in a couple of years can issue a new generation of talented alumni. And talented employees, united in “dreamtime”, are the main secret of solving the problem of sustainable business growth.