Alexey Germanovich ~ Skolkovo Russia B-School

Excellent to have Alexey Germanovich join us on MaximizingProgress.tv tonight. Alexey runs the Public Sector Projects aspect of startup business school Skolkovo in Moscow, Russia! I've mentioned Skolkovo before -- noting both their Go Inside magazine and celebrating when CNN spotlighted their new campus and interviewed key entrepreneurship faculty member Dmitry Repin. Alexey's now in charge of finding, evaluating and carrying out projects in the public sector and corporate social responsibility arena, all to be implemented by students within the Skolkovo full-time MBA program. Before this, Alexey had been working in huge Russian steelco Severstal in various executive positions, as well as in media, automotive, and telcoms sectors. What's especially compelling about the Skolkovo initiative is that they have both big ambitions -- i.e. to be the top B-School on our planet, certainly for emerging markets -- as well as benefiting from top-level support in Russia, from industry and government alike -- e.g. see here the MBA students surrounding Russian Federation President Medvedev after he personally gave them their student ID cards...How cool is that! I don't see US President Obama doing anything remotely similar at Stanford GSB or HBS or MIT Sloan. Plus, I've had the pleasure of engaging with the first Skolkovo MBA class during the past two months here in MIT/Cambridge. This has been their US American Ventures module where they have connected with local companies plus absorbed at least some of the venture ethos of MIT. They will undoubtedly ferment their MIT venture yeast with plentiful Skolkovo startup feedstock to create an entirely new uniquely Russian brew! This is an epic and compelling education institution!