Moscow, Russia

Kesarev Partners Yury Panasik and Pavel Melnikov last week held a professional orientation seminar for students of the Institute of Social Sciences of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA).

The students were given a thorough overview of the government relations profession globally and in Russia, with key observations and guidance including:

• Government Relations is still a very young occupation in Russia but has been rapidly growing over the last decade;
• The GR function is focused on supporting commercial operations, while its professionals constantly need to prove their value-add within companies;
• Most GR professionals have degrees in law, public management, other types of social sciences (economics, sociology, political science). The most in-demand consultants have dual degrees in humanitarian and technical fields;
• Russia does not have higher education degrees in GR, thus GR specialists in Russia need to upgrade their skills with professional training and business literature.

The nature of GR work in companies and consulting agencies differs: while corporate GR is more stable, the environment of a consultancy is more dynamic and varied, full of multitasking opportunities.

Yury Panasik also spoke on the breakdown of a usual day of a government relations person: "Usually, a GR specialist spends up to 70% of his time on research and analysis, about 20% on developing GR strategies and then a smaller but crucial amount of time (the final 10%) on implementing it".

Kesarev Partners held the lecture for RANEPA students for the first time. Kesarev continues to develop relations with key universities in the countries in which it operates to share knowledge and expertise in building relations with stakeholders and understanding the regulatory environment.