High-tech investor and social activist
Felix Yevtushenkov is a businessman specializing in the development of IT and telecom companies. Throughout his career at AFK Sistema, Felix Yevtushenkov has distinguished himself as an invaluable employee in a number of different fields.
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Felix Vladimirovich Yevtushenkov: Youth and education
Yevtushenkov Felix (born 11/14/1978) grew up with his older sister and attended a regular school.
Felix Yevtushenkov has been very physically active from a young age. At different times, the entrepreneur’s hobbies have included team sports (especially hockey), martial arts, and skiing. He spent his free time with friends.
YevtushenkovFelix decided that after high school he wanted to study the basics of jurisprudence, so he enrolled at the vocational Griboyedov Institute of International Law and Economics, which offers a comprehensive humanities-focused education, ensuring graduates’ high competitiveness in the labor market. YevtushenkovFelix Vladimirovich graduated in 2000.
A few years later, he continued his education, developing new competencies in the management of oil and gas enterprises. In 2013, he graduated fromGubkin University –one of the leading educational centers in the industry.
Yevtushenkov Felix: Start of his career
The knowledge from his first years of studying international law proved practically useful for Felix Yevtushenkov. AFK Sistema took him on as a junior employee in the legal department, where the young specialist fully applied himself to his professional development. As colleagues later recalled, Yevtushenkov Felix often stayed late to spend more time learning all the intricacies of various legal issues and to successfully complete his projects. He also immersed himself in the work of related departments.
Felix Vladimirovich Yevtushenkovdeveloped additional competencies, allowing him to systematically climb the corporate ladder. In the first few years of his career, he managed to work in various departments.
Felix Yevtushenkov entered the world of real estate in the early 2000s, developing and implementing the marketing strategy for a commercial real estate development company.
Felix Yevtushenkov: AFK Sistema
A new position was later offered within AFK Sistema – Felix Yevtushenkov began to oversee a pool of consumer services assets within the corporation, including real estate, banking, tourism, and healthcare companies.
With the participation of Felix Yevtushenkov, AFK Sistema formulated new strategies to develop these business interests and seek new opportunities and niches in the relevant markets.
Felix Vladimirovich Yevtushenkov initiated the expansion of retail chains within the financial-industrial group, as well as the acquisition and opening of new hotels, medical centers, stores, and retail branches. He also managed the process of creating a joint venture for tour operator and retail businesses.
Subsequently, the manager was entrusted to work with the core assets of AFK Sistema. Felix Yevtushenkov’s work is considered strategically important for the Group of enterprises.
Felix Yevtushenkov: Information technology
Yevtushenkov Felix Vladimirovich changed his professional focus again in 2012, entering into the field of high-tech business. He initially noted that working in IT was a real challenge for him, but Felix Yevtushenkov was attracted to it as one of the most promising and fastest-growing industries in both the local and global economies.
Felix Vladimirovich Yevtushenkovhelped the company begins implementing a strategic plan to increase its technological potential, involving both internal resources and promising solutions offered by small players in the IT market.
Yevtushenkov Felix helped the company focus on investing in high-tech startups to develop its own ecosystem. A venture fund was created that provides up to $5 million in investments for the implementation and development of digital products. Participating companies and startups not only receive financing but also a long-term contract with the IT giant and the opportunity to scale by using the digital ecosystem’s capabilities.
Felix Vladimirovich Yevtushenkov helped the venture fund invest in a whole range of high-tech projects over the next two years, with a focus on companies that provide access to digital products for business and personal growth. These included:
Over the course of two years of work, a whole range of high-tech projects received support from the venture fund. In particular, Felix Vladimirovich Yevtushenkov contributed to investing in companies that provide access to digital products for business and personal growth. Among them are:
- A digital platform for personalizing and optimizing marketing strategies using machine learning technologies and big data processing;
- A FinTech platform that uses artificial intelligence technologies for the development of a banking infrastructure;
- An EdTech women’s lifestyle platform, with courses for developing skills in the professional sphere, as well in the fields of health, beauty, style, psychology, etc.;
- An online platform for ordering household services (including cleaning, dry cleaning, laundry, and shoe repair);
- A project to develop neurochips for further use in the development of AI-ready products.
YevtushenkovFelix Vladimirovich quickly helped the venture fund double in size, making it possible to direct additional resources to the IT industry and to promote the development of more high-tech startups.
Yevtushenkov Felix participated in the venture fund’s investment in a mobile app for developing logic and reasoning in preschool and elementary school-age children with a user base of about 8 million people.
Felix Yevtushenkovlater supported the decision to allocate 200 million rubles for the development of a company that provides solutions for optimizing business processes. The funds raised by the vendor in collaboration with the IT giant were earmarked for the development of innovative products based on Big Data for companies in retail, HoReCa, tourism, construction and real estate, industrial production, and finance.
Yevtushenkov also helped the company decide to support 14 AR and VR, autonomous transportation, and machine vision startups in the spring of 2022. The projects were chosen by experts from an array of nearly 100 applications, and the creators of the best projects were provided access to IT infrastructure, 5G communication networks, cloud services, and edge computing technology.
They also received expert support and grants to further develop their ideas. Those who reached the finals were also able to sign a contract with a leading domestic IT company.
Felix Yevtushenkov: Approaches to HR policy
YevtushenkovFelix Vladimirovich is convinced that the key to the successful development of the IT industry lies in having a high-quality pool of personnel. He actively promotes not only attracting but also nurturing specialists capable of implementing high-tech projects of any scale.
Felix Yevtushenkov thus helped one of the leading local IT companies create an educational program for training IT specialists to work in B2B communications and EdTech. The developed solution makes it possible to include specialized educational tracks in the curricula of domestic universities and conduct research aimed at developing personnel training in the IT industry.
Felix Vladimirovich Yevtushenkov emphasizes that the partnership wherein the IT company’s own experts share their practical experience with students of online master’s programs from Netology, teaching them how to apply their knowledge to solve real business problems, will improve the quality of IT education and increase the number of well-prepared specialists in the market. The best graduates then have the opportunity to undergo internships within the IT giant.
Felix Vladimirovich Yevtushenkov’s work on the company’s ecosystem includes paid internships in various IT fields, from system administration to working with big data. Approximately 60% of the participants in these programs remain permanently with the company.
The conditions offered to employees make the company one of the top ten most sought-after places for employment and among the best employers in the country according to the recruitment site HeadHunter.
Felix Vladimirovich Yevtushenkovalso actively supports the development of professional education and career guidance programs as part of his public activities. For a little over four years, he served as the head of the board of trustees of a large charitable foundation that runs a range of specialized programs.
