RUSKIE: BEERS, BEARS & BABUSHKAS

About the Book
Ruskie: Beers, Bears & Babushkas Ruskie: Beers, Bears & Babushkas shows a picture of Russia, Russian Business and the Russian People as they really are. Admittedly, they don’t all drink copious amounts of Vodka but some of them do. Not all Russian women threaten to cut off their fingers as proof of their love for someone, then again some of them do. In general, Businessmen in Moscow don’t go around shooting their competitors in order to make sure their business succeeds, but, you guessed it, once again some of them still do! Matthew Francis, a young Englishman, arrives to set up a ‘Western Style’ consulting practice in Moscow and gives a hilarious account of the pleasures and perils of being a Brit in Russia. Faster than a Russian woman chasing a designer handbag, scarier than being threatened by the Moscow Mafia, and sexier than watching Maria Sharapova play tennis in her underwear. Or maybe not! One thing for sure, this is a story of the Real Russia, the Russia you definitely don’t read about in the newspapers!

About the Author
Matthew Francis was born in Leicester, England, in 1975. He was trained as a Lawyer and from 1999 lived in The States for 2 years, working on some high profile tobacco litigation cases. He returned to the UK and in 2002, decided to set up a business in Russia. He then spent the next 5 years of his life, advising Russian companies on how to expand their operations into Thhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gife West. He made a success of his own business, working with some of the world’s leading organizations, but his success was also his downfall. In 2007 he was threatened by one of his competitors and had to leave Russia. Although it all ended spectacularly, the experiences he had while living and working in this exciting and volatile environment have provided him with considerable experience in the area of Russian Business and Social Affairs. He now lives in Rugby, England and works as a Public Relations Consultant, working with Russian companies looking to set up their operations in The UK.

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CEO Update April 2009

The turbulent and challenging times continue, but we can now see the beginnings of a recovery and this is very clearly reflected in the prospects that the Lausanne Consulting Group is currently developing. Yes, the past few months have been very tough, but the Lausanne Consulting Group business model and the dedicated team that we have in place have enabled us to turn this crisis into an opportunity!

Whilst maintaining our remarkable delivery record, we have used the past few months to listen to our clients and to develop a number of new services to meet their expectations. These remain well within the core business of the Lausanne Consulting Group but focus more on specific areas of concern to our clients.

As part of developing a more sophisticated training capability I am very pleased to announce a joint venture in France between the Lausanne Academy and Sciences Po, one of Frances top academic institutions. The aim of this partnership is to develop innovative solutions around managing change in complex social environments. As part of this we will be hosting our first joint event in the autumn of this year.

One of the most exciting aspects of the past few months has been the development of our advisory panel made up of senior international figures from the world of business. Unlike our competitors who tend top use these figures as “elaborate door openers”, we aim to maximise their wealth of experience by providing support to our delivery teams. This in turn gives us the ability to provide a far more comprehensive service to our clients.

For the remainder of 2009 it is clear that we and the rest of the business community face a number of challenges. Success and profitability will be achieved by those that anticipate the circumstances facing them, react to these in a structured and coherent manner and continue to seek excellence in all that they do! The Lausanne Consulting Group aims to continue providing support to these forward thinking organisations and to support them with a strong team of highly respected professionals.

The summer months will be by far the busiest that we have seen since our creation, but with your support and despite the current economic climate, we will make 2009 our most successful year ever.

Thanks for your support.

Marcus

CEO Update 11.08

CEO Update
11/2008


The past few months have undoubtedly been the most turbulent that the business world has witnessed in living memory and the Lausanne Consulting Group has not escaped this. Many of our clients have found themselves in a situation where they have had to look at expenditure and make some drastic cuts. Although freezing consulting spend is often the first reaction, it is often doing the opposite that will help the client company make the greatest changes. Thankfully, a number of Lausanne’s clients have chosen this approach and placed their trust in us to help them get through these challenging times. I would like to thank them for their on-going commitment and assure them that we will do everything to justify this trust.

Internally we have always prided ourselves with our ability to read a situation and react according. It is therefore no surprise that we started making a number of fundamental changes to our business back in the summer. The first of these was a strategic decision to move our commercial strategy from the traditional consulting model to a market driven series of commercial offerings that would address the needs that we felt would be the real drivers for business leaders during the second half of 2008 and 2009.

Moving from a model that had served us well for many years to something far more dynamic meant changing the way we do business without loosing the cultural strength and history that is the basis for the Lausanne Consulting Group. Unfortunately we lost a number of colleagues during this process, however what we have gained by introducing new professionals and management far outweighs these losses.

Biting this bullet early has been painful but 2009 now looks very exciting indeed!

As part of our long term commitment to offering our clients real solutions to the problems they face I am very pleased to announce that in October of this year we formally launched our recruitment division. Under the careful guidance of Carlotta Navarro, the President of this division, we have developed a number of offerings that answer the needs of our clients in a way that is unique in the market. Closely linked to the Academy, the recruitment services we are offering go far beyond the simple recruitment of people. (If you would like to know more, please contact us directly).

The end of the year will soon be upon us and we will look back at 2008 with mixed feelings: With sadness for some of the things we had to do as part of the restructuring. With excitement for what we are about to do in 2009!

Which ever way you choose to look back at 2008, the Lausanne Consulting Group fundamentals will never change:

Offerings that meet the needs of our clients; Quality that enables us to over-deliver on expectations; a work ethic that is both professional and realistic; and above all, a belief in what we are doing.

Thanks for your support.

Marcus Hillman

CEO Update - 06 / 2008

As the first half of 2008 draws to a close we can look back on yet another eventful six months in the development of The Lausanne Consulting Group.

Whilst our financial performance continues to mirror our plans and reflect the excellent overall performance of the Group, the exciting aspect of the year to date has been our investment into the expansion of our core business, namely the consulting division.

The outstanding performance of our project teams, who more often than not over-deliver on our clients’ expectations, has created a strong reference and referral base. Associated with a robust and innovative business acquisition process, this track record has helped the consulting division to achieve an unprecedented 100% transformation of commercial opportunities into long term clients. In turn this has challenged us to develop our business model further and by the end of 2009 we plan to have a business development activity which is twice as strong as was originally budgeted for in 2008. 2009 already looks like an exciting year!

The Group has worked hard over the past few months to further raise its profile and has hosted a number of events. These include the Master Series tennis event, the classic and F1 Grand Prix in Monaco and more recently The Michael Stich Foundation Dragon boat cup in Hamburg. These events aimed to bring together clients and employees in an informal environment and, as with the recent event in Hamburg, support worthwhile charities.

Looking ahead to the rest of the year our plans include creating an executive advisory board to assist the senior management of the Group. This board will provide support and guidance as we take the company into a number of new, but related areas. Several senior international personalities have already agreed to join us and this clearly reflects the view that the Lausanne Consulting Group is and intends to continue being a major player in the performance improvement market. I will issue a statement with the full list and short biographies before the end of the summer.

I hope everybody has a well deserved break in the summer.

C.E.O Marcus Hillman-Eady

10/2006 Lausanne Consulting Group at the Management Consultancy Careers Fair

The Lausanne Consulting Group (LCG) attended the 2006 Management Consultancy Careers Fair held at the Barbican Hall, London on the 13th October 2006. The event attracted more than 2000 candidates, having been advertised by www.top-consultant.com and following a special feature section in the 26th of September edition of the Evening Standard. LCG staff attending the fair came from all the departments and from the different LCG regional units (U.K, Switzerland, France, Germany and Spain) in order to give our stand visitors the possibility to discover our multicultural profiles.

Lausanne Consulting USA launch

We are please to announce the opening of our North American Operation nearly a year ahead of plan. Headquartered on 5th Avenue New York with our Operating centre in Atlanta Georgia, we are well placed to serve our clients throughout the United States . The President of the USA Company is Adrian Kennedy, a seasoned consultant with 20 years experience in the industry and 10 years in North America who has successfully served such prestigious companies as The Hartford Group, Masco, DuPont and Merck. Lausanne USA Inc has already attracted wide interest with its unique service offering and risk sharing culture and we look forward to the rapid growth that the European operation has achieved.

For further information,

contact kennedy@lausanneconsulting.com