Interview with Successful Russian Female Entrepreneur Inna Alexeeva
We had the pleasure of connecting with Inna Alexeeva, recently named one of Russia’s Top Ten Power Women by The NextWomen Business Magazine.
Inna has a robust background in PR spanning the past 13 years, and started her own company six years ago, PR Partner. It is now a top independent PR agency in Russia with an emphasis on finance, consumer goods, real estate and IT; she’s even launched her own PR conference.
More than just an entrepreneur, Inna is also a teacher, coach, business and PR consultant, co-author of the book “Top Ranking PR: How to Stellify Top-Manager”, and author of the first PR blog in Russia, businesspr.ru.
Tell us more about your career path – how did you become Head of PR Partner?
IA: When I studied at the university (Department of Journalism) and was a second year student I began to work as a PR specialist. I worked for PR agencies and various firms, tried to get knowledge of a broad range of markets, from IT to finance. I understood different advantages and disadvantages of PR but all in all, I has a feeling that it is my cup of tea because I liked communicating with people very much.
After graduating from the university I moved to Moscow where I got the certificate of professional qualification from Russian Association of PR, and found a job first in the real estate holding and in a year in DeltaCredit Bank that is a part of the French banking group Societe Generale. At the same time I began to teach at the Russian State University of Humanities. When I realized that I had enough contacts and money to begin a new business here, in Moscow, I talked to the top-management of DeltaCredit and made my own agency. I would like to thank ex-head of DelraCredit marketing Olga Bazanova and ex-head of the bank Igor Kouzine for their help at that moment, actually the bank was my first Client then.
What has been one of the biggest lessons you’ve learned in business?
IA: The main thing is to love what you do and at the same time never stop to developing your skills, your team and your business to be very professional. I saw many PR agencies in Russia that had a very good potential but stopped to develop their people, top-managers and services, and finally died.
The main thing is to love what you do and at the same time never stop to developing your skills…
What is your biggest professional accomplishment to date? What are you most proud of?
IA: My greatest professional achievement is my agency and our small (30 persons), but very professional, open-hearted and open-minded team. I’m very proud of our cooperative victories.
How do you work best to achieve your goals? What do you think has made you so successful?
IA: The most important is to be best and to be stubborn if I could say to you so. I’m always pursuing to achieve the best results in all spheres of business, not just to accomplish a task, I try to find the most effective way for running business and for achieving results for the Clients. At the same time a person who would like to make his/her own business should not take into consideration “no” at least at the very beginning.
What advice would you give to other women who want to advance in their careers?
IA: Be positive and believe in yourself. Fear of falling is a bad beginning. Don’t be afraid of falling down – if you fell, just get up and move on, do not give up. If you really want something, you will find thousands of opportunities to achieve it! Good luck!
Follow Inna on Twitter and learn more about PR Partner by visiting their website.
