Andrey Kosogov, Chairman, Alfa Capital Partners
In the end of February 2006, CEO of Alfa Capital Anatoly Milyukov announced that he was going to leave. Most of other key executives decided to quit together with him. It meant that we had to form a new team.
I knew Anatoly since he was a student and I understood how hard that decision was for him. I could persuade him to stay, but I did nothing of the kind for it would not resolve the situation at all. By that moment longtime contradictions between two key executives had become real obstacles in the way of the company’s development and finally they made one of those two persons leave.
I had no right to keep Milyukov’s team because one must not motivate and inspire people over the head of their direct boss. I believe that it is one of the essential principles of any business. And people understood well that I did not hold their fates in my hands - it was their future manager’s job. But I had to find that very person…
I did not have my vacation that summer for I spent it interviewing candidates. It was me who invited Mikhail Khabarov to join Alfa Capital as CEO. I started meeting heads of all leading investment companies in the Russian market. All of us usually speak about our achievements frankly. Having talked to them I became certain once more that there were no genius managers, but there were talented and successful people. And it was what I actually needed. Geniuses are good in science, but business needs successful leaders. After considering nearly 10 leading companies I first focused on three persons and then on two. Both of them were really very successful managers but necessity for us to build almost everything from zero made me choose Mikhail because he seemed to me much more appropriate for that kind of job. And I hope I did not make a mistake.
Resignation of Anatoly Milyukov made me reflect on the need of fundamental changes, because such situation is always a symptom of serious illness of a company as such. And we changed everything: team, strategy, plans, and even our office location.
But first of all we had to change the structure of power at the high level of company’s management not to repeat the mistakes of the previous team. It was possible only through delegating maximum authority to the new CEO. We prepared business plan, approved budget, and then gave him full freedom of action. And I really believe that we managed to entice Khabarov only because we offered him to try methods of management completely different from those he was used to before.
Russian original
