OREANDA-NEWS. July 04, 2013. The Graduate School of Management of St. Petersburg State University (GSOM SPbSU) and Citi have announced the results and presented diplomas to the graduates of the first-in-Russia professional education program "Project Management for Social Entrepreneurs," which has been carried out with financial support from the Citi Foundation.

The diploma presentation ceremony was attended by Vasiliy Titov, 1st Deputy President and Chairman of the Management Board of VTB Bank, and Zdenek Turek, Country Officer of Citi Russia and Citi Division Head for CEE, who jointly led a master class on the theme "Leadership in a Changing World." The chosen topic was not coincidental, as people with leadership skills and a proactive outlook on life are capable of drawing the attention of the public and government bodies to the development of social entrepreneurship and thus to solutions of such issues was poverty, social adaptation of disabled people, the need to support the elderly and much more.

Andrei Kostin:

As Zdenek Turek pointed out, social entrepreneurs organize their projects as profitable business enterprises and, most importantly, act as initiators of positive changes in society, bringing together people who strive to help socially disadvantaged groups.

The "Project Management for Social Entrepreneurs" program last five months and included four training modules: The Basics of Social Entrepreneurship, Project Financing and Risk Management, Business Plan Development, and Marketing and Sales for Social Entrepreneurship.
The Graduate School of Management at St. Petersburg State University in May 2013 became a laureate of the "Impulse for Good" prize in the nomination for "Best Russian Educational Program in Social Entrepreneurship." The "Impulse for Good" prize, founded by regional social programs fund "Our Future", is an annual award recognizing contributions to the development and promotion of social entrepreneurship in Russia.
 
Yuri Blagov, Director of the PricewaterhouseCoopers Center for Corporate Social Responsibility at GSOM SPbSU, noted: "The development of social entrepreneurship, including within a company internally, clearly demonstrates the trend toward the emergence of ‘shared values’ as an effective approach to addressing pressing social and environmental problems, an approach which transforms the traditional ways of doing business".
 
More detailed information about the program can be found on the website of GSOM SPbSU (www.gsom.spbu.ru/en/).