An interview with a freelance consultant Konstantin Ivanov
Learning from the best is a luxury and at the same time a real opportunity of our life time. The uniqueness of the path of every successful person is undeniable, but the story does not cease to be less interesting because of it. Even if someone else’s success sometimes causes ambiguous feelings, we cannot deny that this path is worthy of respect. Today we are especially lucky, a unique person - an entrepreneur, a Ph.D., an owner of a consulting business, a self-made person from Arkhangelsk, Konstantin (Konsta) Ivanov got on our research radar.
- Hello, Konsta! Today is an important day, we are creating the first official interview about you. I would like to fully reveal the facets of your personality for the readers. And my first question to you is: who do you consider yourself to be - a businessman, a consultant or a freelancer?
- Hi, Margarita! I rather think of myself as a process engineer, because I am interested in the processes of converting materials into the end products. I’ve always liked technology very much, but life made me move forward, made me become a businessman, because one cannot live on theory alone. And in order to give yourself the opportunity to develop and grow, you need to find a businessman in yourself. So, I am a businessman. Over the past two years, I have decided to drastically change my life and become a free artist, but at the same time do what I like with my soulmates and partners. Thus, you can call me a freelancer as well. Freelancing, of course, allows you to hover above the situation and keep up with anywhere. I get real pleasure from consulting, because I like to put everything right, I like to put complex things in simple words. So, you outlined all the facets of my profession right: I am an entrepreneur, a consultant, an engineer, and a freelancer.
- How did you manage to start working for yourself? What does it take?
- I would say that it took me 10-12 years of employment in the companies, to understand the basic principles of how everything works in business, to have connections, and after that I could take off! During the last year and a half I have been working for myself, I find real pleasure in it, and I also involve many of my friends and colleagues in it.
- Do you think that employment is dying out?
- Employment would never die: there are professions and jobs that are regulated, there are large corporations that would not disappear either. However, there are industries and areas that allow you to be a consultant, an expert and successfully express yourself. The most important thing for people who want to become free is to wake up once in the morning, to understand that they want something new, interesting and breathe in deeply. Self-confidence is important here; it often varnishes when you work for a company. Faith gives strength to push the boundaries and start living the life that we would like to, many still only dream of. There is nothing difficult in it, you just need to like your job, be a professional, strive for the best and be motivated. I believe that two things in life are very important: motivation and a luck. It is difficult to live without motivation, it should be everywhere - in the family, in the business, in sports, and it moves us forward. A luck will follow, it plays a big role in life, and I have always considered and still believe that if you do your job well, then luck will always follow.
- Are people of leisure lucky?
- I have not met one for a long time [laughing]. I am a work addict myself, in a good way. Now I just changed my working time a little. Of course, there are people of leisure, always been and always will be, but I do not consider myself to be the one. And people around me are neither. There are creative moments when it’s better to take a break to find a new direction for yourself, and this process of procrastination is also very vital. But long pauses are probably very depressing, I still can't afford it.
- Then, returning to the previous answer, maybe this is not a luck, but a chain of connected actions that bring good results?
- To put it short, for me this is a luck.
- What path did you take before becoming a professional and a popular specialist?
- I want to start from the school years... In my gymnasium No. 6 in Arkhangelsk we had a very strong course of English that helped me a lot. Then there was a university course of wood processing chemistry. Right after the graduation from the university (July 3, 2006) I was employed at JSC Solombalskiy PPM and I did a postgraduate study that I successfully finished in 2009. My thesis is concerned with the magical transformation of quality chips into pulp. I worked at the mill and at the university. I was engaged in the feasibility and implementation of investment projects of Solombalales Group. Then, I had a chance to switch to consulting and engineering and I tried to walk in the consultant’s shoes. At that moment I got certain experience and connections. I had seven years spans of employment in my career. Having had two times of seven years each I hit the milestone and realized that I can work for myself. During the second stage, I had very intensive interesting projects related to the expansion of production at the plants, I got valuable experience in terms of organizing project teams, working with partners, suppliers, designers, and customer teams. The experience I got is universal and can be iterated in any project. My path from the graduate to the professional and a valuable specialist was not always easy, but I am proud of all my projects.
- How on Earth did you a guy with two diplomas and a good command of English ended to stuck yourself for so long in pulp and paper industry?
- I finished school in 2001, me and my parents were thinking where should I go next. We are the family of engineers: my father Aleksandr was a mechanic-engineer, my mother Irina is a civil engineer, my brother Anton was a civil engineer, he was the top of the course and graduated from ASTU in 1996. I confided to my dad. We came to Nikolay Lvov, Director General of Solombalskiy PPM. He firmly told me that I should be a wood processing engineer, therefore I am grateful to him. Solombalskiy PPM granted the study of several students, Aleksand Drachov, Anna Abramova and me. And employed us after the graduation. I am lucky with the post-graduate study: our chemical wood processing department of ASTU (NArFU) headed by my master, Doctor and Professor Valery Komarov, has been and remains very progressive and up-to-date. Our teachers still work there. I express special gratitude to Lyubov Milovidova, Galina Komarova, Yakov Kazakov, Yulia Sevastyanova and Natalya Shcherbak. We are still friends with them. Pulp industry evokes warm friendly feelings in me. It’s a fifteen-year anniversary of our graduation from the chemical wood processing department this year. We have plans to celebrate it.
- What role did your hometown Arkhangelsk play in your development as a professional?
- Arkhangelsk was historically a timber industry center during the tsarist era, and even more so in the Soviet period, when the largest sawmills and pulp and paper mills were built. But soon I realized that I need to move on, so I moved to the city of Saint Petersburg to settle. Life and business called me. On new year 2017 I decided to move to Saint Petersburg. Still, I have warm feelings for Arkhangelsk, there are lots of relatives and friends there, we constantly keep in touch.
- Does the province have no chances for a big voyage?
- It is important to find investment and create new modern jobs. After the shutdown of the Solombalskiy PPM Andrey Shestakov, Nikolay Lvov and I tried to work out the issues of its restart, we hoped for the release of new products and commissioning of the new production. Alas, we didn't succeed. A province always has chances, but this requires creating conditions for development, attracting investment, creating clusters with clear rules of the game. There are excellent examples in the Russian Federation - Kaluga region, Tatarstan. Logistics is essential here. I think that Arkhangelsk also has a good future associated with the development of the North, extracting mineral resources and the Northern Sea Route. But concerning wood-processing, the assets built during the USSR are depleted. It is not feasible to develop a new pulp and paper mill in the North. Sawmill - yes, biofuel - yes. ULK Group is a good example. The enterprises that are launched and managed by Vladimir Fedorovich Butorin are an excellent show-case. Everything coincided here: motivation and the energy of the owner. I wish ULK remains the first industrial sawmill group in Russia and successfully implement the project of the construction of a new mega-plant in Karpogory.
- What is your working day?
- As I am a father of two children, I try to spend time with them, my day starts in a kindergarden with my son, in the afternoon I am playing tennis with my daughter. In the morning I come by to a coffee-shop to tune in and I usually have scheduled tele-conferences and a routine work under the current and planned projects. Me and my partner Sergey Martushev are always in search for the new projects and deal with the promotion as the company is a start-up. I work in a co-working space and find it very effective. It’s an artistic space where people of various businesses working for themselves meet. I am an office worker, so I like this atmosphere, but as a businessman I control my expenses, co-work is the most perspective model. Now after the first year of Covid-19 pandemic I started to visit industrial sites again. Business trips for me are an inevitable part of my work, new places, new cities, new people are a hype for me.
- Who you work for?
- Over the past two years, my client network has expanded dramatically. Today, foreign companies, investors and financial institutions that require knowledge of the specifics of technology and independent opinion of effective production methods buy my services. Besides, we also carry out design work for existing enterprises along with our partner LLC “Advis Plus” - the company of Evgeny Belov and Pavel Nasredinov. A year ago, we announced our partnership and implemented several successful projects together.
- You are working in a very specific niche, is it unintentionally or do you know exactly where to move?
- In the university we never had a course of consultancy services, I was learning from the people I was working with. For me, a very good example has always been and still is a sales manager Mr. Pekka Leskinen. We did a project at Solombala together. He is retired now and is living in the city of Lahti. He has always amazed me with several things, the first, he knows Russian people, as he has studied in Russia and worked at the Russian market, he speaks Russian well, and the second, he is always calm, positive, professional at the negotiations and knows the specifics of his equipment well.
I’ve always wanted to do what I like - studying and researching technologies, solutions and proposing the most effective ones. Now it takes a form of consulting, but this experience has been forming over the past several years. I do not live or work under the strict rules, I am open to anything new. I am not afraid of hard tasks, I know the principal pattern to follow. It is a practical experience. For example, last year we at IM Consulting Group were engaged in a new business for us, the development of decarbonization measures. It was a completely new sphere for us, but we succeeded.
- Own business is a stress or an opportunity?
- I stand for clean business, no stress. Working for myself, I try to organize the work process in a way that my activity brings me only positive emotions and, in general, has a favorable effect on me. This approach gives more potentials.
- Do you have goals or you have it all yet?
- My motto: “Every day is a sensation!” I set goals every day. This year I promised myself to learn basic Italian. Last year I made my child dream come true, I had a dream to play tennis, but in Arkhangelsk I did not have the opportunity. Now I am playing tennis at Elagin isle, I joined a small team there and we even have tournaments.
- What inspires you?
- Sometimes I make a break to stop and think. The way I live now allows me to do this. I am inspired by the new people, new ideas, fresh point of view. BTW, people… people inspire me a lot, their true stories, how they changed their lives and succeed. By the way, Andrey Lushnikov, the owner of the Avenue Page coworking space, where I work, is a good self-made example of Saint Petersburg businessmen in development. A person who has reached such a level that he can already be an influencer himself. Therefore, I can definitely answer: people inspire me and their ideas.
When I started to go on business from Arkhangelsk to Saint Petersburg I enjoyed the architecture, the culture of the city. I realized that I want my children to live in a new atmosphere, to see the Peter and Paul Cathedral, the Summer Garden, the New Holland... This goes along with my family story. One of my grandfathers was born in Leningrad, the other in Moscow. They had to move to the North to work and settle, to start families. Now, over the generation I have an opportunity to come back to the roots. I started with Saint Petersburg. My family story is my inspiration as well. Now I am looking for the foot-prints of the family in Moscow. The most important thing why I do this are my children, to show them who their great-grandfathers, great-grandmothers have been, where we have come from, where we are going and why we are here. After moving to Saint Petersburg I discovered a new art for myself, ballet. Diaghilev, Fokine, Bakst, Benois, Stravinsky, Nizhinsky, Pavlova, Rubinstein are people who created and promoted Russian art abroad. From the point of view of project management, this is a very interesting practice: to collect pieces of Russian art and stars of the beginning of the 20 century, to know what will be interesting in France, England, Spain, America, to receive funding, to organize artists’ tours, to have PR campaign and do it all without computers, email, zooms and mobile communications. I admire Diaghilev as an entrepreneur who opened Russia and its talents to the world. We are still known abroad thanks to the Russian Seasons.
- Is Saint Petersburg conquered? What is next? Moscow?
- I am in Saint Petersburg for four years already, half of this time we have been looking at each other closely. I’ve embraced this city, and I hope it is mutual. Since at the age of 33 I already moved from Arkhangelsk, for me it is not a difficult decision to move to another city. I did it with Saint Petersburg and I would like to move on further. In our country, yes, most likely such an interesting and promising center is Moscow. If I take 10-15 year perspective, I would like to live over the continent in New-York. Who knows maybe in a year or so I switch my activity and this allows me to live in the city where no one can afford to live but eight million people do [laughing].
- We looked into the future, now what is your feed back to the past? In conclusion. What would you tell Konsta at 20 y.o.?
- Always search for something new. Choose your own way, be true to yourself, respect people and their decisions. Be delicate and tolerant. Do not abandon what you’ve chosen, and we’ve chosen our profession. Go on and develop your competence, experience in a profession you’ve been studying for five years. Move forward, travel. And again - be true to yourself.
PHOTO: EVGENY KIRILLOV