Eduard Arkadyevich Fiyaksel (born June 28, 1952, Gorky) — a Nizhny Novgorod entrepreneur, venture investor, and economist; Doctor of Economic Sciences, professor.[1][2] A physicist by original profession, in the 1990s he headed the Nizhny Novgorod Land Bank, then assembled the Nizhegorodsky Project group of companies and became one of Russia's first business angels.[3][4][2] In 2005 he founded the Department of Venture Management at the Nizhny Novgorod branch of Vysshaya Shkola of Economics — the only such department in the country — and led it until 2018.[5] A year later he initiated the creation of the business-angel association "Startovye Investitsii" (Starting Investments), the first regional association of its kind in Russia.[3]

Physicist and Inventor

He was born on June 28, 1952, in Gorky.[1] According to the biographical reference work Labirint, his grandfather was a first-guild merchant and a member of the Nizhny Novgorod City Duma.[4] He trained as an engineer-physicist and defended a candidate's dissertation in physical and mathematical sciences — "Physical Modeling of Oscillation and Radiation Processes in a Non-Uniform Cylindrical Shell."[3][4]

He worked at the Sirius scientific research institute, then headed the physics department laboratory at the Gorky Institute of Civil Engineering — now the University of Architecture and Civil Engineering.[3][4] He holds seven inventor's certificates for "flat-panel displays."[3] In 1980, the direct-current electroluminescent displays developed by his team were exhibited at VDNKh; according to Fiyaksel's recollections, Japanese specialists would stand in front of them for a long time.[3]

For more than a year he lobbied for a ministerial order to introduce the development at Soviet factories. When the order was finally signed, a telegram arrived from a Leningrad enterprise — one he was still quoting word for word thirty-five years later:[3]

"Due to the construction of the Okhtinskiy Bridge interchange, the construction of the workshop for the implementation of the products is postponed to 2010."

— telegram of 1983[3]

The cooperative and the bank

After this episode, Fiyaksel submitted his resignation. He entered business in 1987, at the age of thirty-five: a Youth Initiative Fund was established at the Gorky Institute of Civil Engineering, and a year later he became its head. The Fund was involved in design, construction, and finishing work, and employed around a thousand people.[3]

In 1993, under Governor Boris Nemtsov, he was invited to serve as deputy chairman of the board of the Nizhny Novgorod Land Interregional Bank, and was subsequently entrusted with running the bank entirely.[3][4] Those years saw the pilot projects of "housing certificates" and "housing loans," which were later adopted by other regions.[3]

Working with the management of the Gorky Automobile Plant, he proposed a new sales scheme to the plant and secured the right to sell its vehicles in the Central Region, excluding Moscow. According to him, RosAvto — a company in which he held a blocking stake — reached two thousand cars sold per month within half a year.[3] Among the projects of those years he also mentioned the production of affordable women's clothing — for shoppers who no longer wanted to dress at the market but could not yet afford boutiques — and a travel agency that worked with Portugal and its former colonies.[3]

Technology business

By the late 1990s he had switched almost entirely to technology. He was introduced to venture investment and angel clubs by White Kendrick, an American living in Nizhny Novgorod; Fiyaksel traveled to Israel to learn from venture investors.[3] His first IT project perished in 2000 along with the dot-com bubble; after that he founded an internet laboratory that wrote software for foreign clients.[3]

He considers his first real success to be the cable television network Informservis: founded in 2001, sold in 2006 to structures of AFK Sistema, with its capitalization having grown tenfold over five years. The network competed with VolgaTelecom and maintained its own newspaper and television channel.[3] Around the same time, Teledom appeared — Nizhny Novgorod's first Class A business center with a unified intelligent building management system; this experience proved useful in the construction of the club residential complex Izumrudny Zamok.[3]

Fiyaksel describes his biggest deal as the 2013 sale of "Mega," a broadband internet provider, to Richard Branson's Virgin structures.[3] In 2010 he was chairman of the board of directors of the Mega-NN group of companies.[6] By 2012 he had more than thirty companies to his name — in finance, trade, real estate development, telecommunications, and IT; some had been sold, while the rest were consolidated into the Nizhegorodsky Proyekt group, which he headed as president.[2]

The Venture Management Department

By his own account, two things led him to the idea of establishing the department: a serious illness in the early 2000s that made him think about what he would leave behind, and a shortage of managers capable of turning inventions into businesses. Retraining scientists as entrepreneurs proved to be a thankless task — it was easier to develop a manager from scratch.[3]

The Department of Venture Management opened at the Nizhny Novgorod branch of Vysshaya Shkola of Economics in June 2005; the university itself described it as the only such department in Russia.[5] The idea was backed by HSE Vice-Rector Lev Lyubimov. In the early days, premises were provided by the Nizhegorodsky Proyekt holding company, and its key staff became the first practitioner-instructors.[3] Teaching followed a "theory in the morning, project in the afternoon" model: each student ran their own venture under the supervision of a practitioner-mentor, and groups were capped at twenty people.[3][2] Guest instructors included "canning king" David Tsifeladze, Vladimir Vanin — owner of the Neolit decorative stone plant — and business angel Alexey Karlov.[3]

Over twelve years, the department graduated 172 master's students.[3] Among the first graduates were Dmitry Budesko, director of the venture company Startovyye Investitsii, and Vladimir Troitsky, director of development at ER-Telecom; graduates were involved in preparing Informservis for sale and in selling Mega.[3] Between 2007 and 2010, Fiyaksel also restructured the branch's marketing department; in 2009 he headed the project and teaching laboratory "Management of Innovative Systems," and in 2010 the Center for Entrepreneurship.[3][2] He led the Department of Venture Management until 2018.[5]

Business Angel

In 2006, on his initiative, the business angels association Startovyye Investitsii was established in Nizhny Novgorod — the first regional association of its kind in Russia — and Fiyaksel became its president.[3][2] He served as vice-president of the Business Angels Community of Russia, sat on the advisory board of the Russian Venture Company, the expert council of the Nizhny Novgorod Innovation Business Incubator, and the jury of the Start program of the Foundation for Assistance to Small Innovative Enterprises in the Science and Technology Sphere for the Volga Federal District.[2]

In December 2011 he was elected chairman of the administrative council of the National Business Angels Association (NBAA). He identified the main goal as expanding the movement across regions — but "without sacrificing quality": an association created on paper is not yet one that actually functions.[7]

In November 2010, at the Russian stage of the Ernst & Young "Entrepreneur of the Year" competition, he was awarded a special prize "For Contribution to the Development of Entrepreneurship."[6] In Firrma magazine's 2017 ranking of Russia's most active business angels, he placed seventh: five deals, an average ticket of $50,000, and $400,000 invested over the year.[8] Vc.ru called him "one of the most successful angels, taking the entire history of their movement into account."[9]

Works

He is the author of more than two hundred works on venture business and innovation management.[5] His books and study guides include:[2]

  • "Theory, Methods and Practice of Venture Business";
  • "20 Lessons in Venture Business";
  • "The 'Innovation Cube' and the Innovators' Palette. Ideas, Projects, Lessons and Commentary";
  • "Marketing of Venture Projects" — a teaching and methodological guide;
  • "Venture Business and Private Equity" — a lecture course;
  • "Evaluating the Efficiency and Effectiveness of Venture Projects: Methodological Aspects."

Personal

He loves to travel: by the age of sixty he had visited more than eighty countries.[1] He advised aspiring entrepreneurs to adopt the motto of the heroes of Two Captains — "Fight and seek, find and never give up!"[1] In gratitude to the people who helped him overcome illness, he opened a Chinese Health Center in Nizhny Novgorod; it is run by Yuliya Krutova, a graduate of his department.[3]

Work, for me, is rest. When I rustle through papers — writing, reading, reflecting — I am resting.

— Eduard Fiyaksel, 2012[1]

Links

  • Wikidata (Q47453974 — entry in the free knowledge base)

Sources

  1. nnov.hse.ru — HSE University — Nizhny Novgorod — Professor Eduard Arkadyevich Fiyaksel turns 60 — June 28, 2012 (archive)
  2. director-iv.ru — Director-Ivanovo — Meet Our Guest: Eduard Fiyaksel. No. 3 (134), March 2012
  3. rb.ru — Fiyaksel E. A Russian university created a department of venture management. What came of it? — March 29, 2018 (archive)
  4. labyrinth.ru — Labyrinth Database — Fiyaksel Eduard Arkadyevich. Biography
  5. web.archive.org — HSE University — Nizhny Novgorod — Department of Venture Management. About the Department (archive)
  6. nnov.hse.ru — HSE University — Nizhny Novgorod — Entrepreneurs of the Year — November 30, 2010 (archive)
  7. nnov.hse.ru — HSE University — Nizhny Novgorod — Russia's Top Business Angel — December 8, 2011 (archive)
  8. incrussia.ru — Russian Business Angels Rating 2017 published (archive)
  9. vc.ru — Russian Business Angels Rating 2017 (archive)