During past weeks I have started sessions with a Skolkovo start-up companies (so far with IT, Biotech and Energy-clusters). Without any over-statement, I am impressed about the pipeline of ideas, companies and entrepreneurs. It is true that whole Skolkovo (with its 2 year birthday approaching) as such is a start-up with its all excitement, hype and cynical doubts. But when you get deeper under the hood, you meet super excellent people who want develop great products, hire top talents, conquer the world and make money. So precisely like with some best start-up companies. That makes me also a true believer of Skolkovo.
During discussions and mentoring sessions, I have used my experiences and failures as an introduction to the topic (i.e. story written in http://www.nofear-community.com). It seems to be a pretty eye-opening approach to kick-start a dialogue. Quite quickly we are moving to the true motivation and leadership development of these young leaders. Many of these companies are recruiting young talents, which are behaving pretty much in a same way in all over the world: With these guys and girls, your leadership is not based on title, wealth or your given status.
The dialogue has just started, but you can see&get my introduction (sorry, it is 14 megabytes, so hold your breath for a second) powerpoint deck from here.
To get some Russian flavour to this theme, this is what Mr Alexei Mordashov, the CEO of Severstal thinks about it:
And the whole story: http://nofear-community.com/blog/2011/video-executive-interview-alexey-mordashov-ceo-severstal-group/