OREANDA-NEWS.  July 16, 2014. PwC Russia starts the new financial year with important changes in leadership team. 2 new leaders of significant business units have been appointed - Vadim Khrapoun as a leader of the Russian Advisory practice and Alexei Ivanov as a leader of the Russian Assurance practice. Ekaterina Lazorina is continuing the role of leader of Tax and Legal services in PwC Russia.

"I am delighted to announce changes in our leadership team when, for the first time in PwC Russia's history, all 3 of our lines of services - Advisory, Assurance, and Tax and Legal - are led by Russian nationals. Further, all three leaders have built their long term careers in PwC Russia, a proud moment for our firm. This historic moment comes as PwC approaches its 25th anniversary in Russia and demonstrates the increasing maturity of our Russian business and it reflects the strength of talent that we have in Russia with a deep experience of working in the Russian market. The focus of the new Russian leadership team will be to deliver on our strategy of achieving sustainable, profitable growth by focusing on our markets and clients. Quality will, as always, be at the heart of everything that we do, and we will continue to invest in our people and business to grow top quality teams able to deliver exceptional service to our clients across Russia", - said David Gray, PwC Russia Managing Partner.

Alexei Ivanov, Russia Assurance Leader
Alexei Ivanov will take over from Igor Lotakov to lead the Assurance practice in PwC Russia with effect from 1 July 2014. Alexei's focus will be in helping PwC further its strategy of growth across all our markets, including Middle Market, regions and non-audit services. Alexei joined PwC in St Petersburg in 1993. He became a partner in 2004 and the managing partner of the St Petersburg office in 2008. Alexei has played an important role in the growth of the St. Petersburg Assurance as well as our X-LOS practice. Alexei moved to Moscow in 2010 to take over role of CIPS Assurance Leader. In 2011 he became our Middle Market BU Leader. Alexei is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (“ACA”), holds a Russian statutory audit license and has extensive experience in leading both international and statutory audits, as well as due diligence and advisory projects for Russian and multinational companies of various industries. Alexei is well known for his commitment to our people and has made a significant contribution to building our Assurance practice, especially in the Middle Market and regions.

Vadim Khrapoun, Russia Advisory Leader
Vadim Khrapoun is appointed PwC Russia Advisory leader and will focus on continuing to build PwC industry focused advisory offerings and accelerating the growth of our market leading specialist advisory services. Vadim joined the firm's Assurance practice in 1994 and, having spent 4 years auditing Russian and international clients in 1998, joined the PwC UK Transaction Services practice. Upon his return to Moscow in late 2000 Vadim was instrumental in building and leading PwC Russia Corporate Finance practice. In 2008 Vadim went to Kazakhstan to lead PwC Eurasia Advisory practice and after 2.5 years returned to Moscow as PwC Russia Markets leader and member of the PwC Russia Leadership team coordinating PwC go-to-market strategy and approach. In addition to his new role Vadim will also retain a client facing and engagement partner role acting as a Global Relationship Partner or Engagement Partner on several strategic clients.

8 new Partners in PwC Russia

Besides new leadership team, 8 new Partners have been appointed in PwC Russia. They will continue to strengthen PwC expertise in different sectors to provide more growth and ensure PwC meets its full potential.

Anna Davydova is appointed partner in the Risk Assurance Services (RAS) group within the Assurance practice in Moscow. Anna will provide audit support services to large cap, middle market and inbound clients in Russia. She will also be responsible for developing new value-added service offerings, particularly in the area of data assurance services. Data assurance is becoming increasingly important with the rise of social media, mobile technology and big data. Anna has already started leveraging PwC UK's experience in this area, and will work to develop this business in Russia by targeting clients that have concerns over the quality or reliability of their data. Anna has masters in Accounting and Audit and holds an ACCA and Russian Statutory Audit licence.

Denis Derevyankin is appointed leader of the Kazan office and Volga region in Russia, where he will be responsible for overseeing operations, managing more than 200 people, developing business and growing our practice there. As an Assurance partner focused on the fast-growing middle market segment, Denis will also take on the engagement leader role for a portfolio of clients. He has an Honours diploma in Economics, an ACCA and a Russian Audit License.

Vladimir Konoplin will become an Assurance partner in the Large Cap team in Moscow. Vladimir has strong technical and project management skills and has been effective at increasing the efficiency of audit engagements. As such, he will help drive the Audit Transformation project within Assurance in Russia. Vladimir has an Honours diploma in Mathematics and Economics, an ACCA and a Russian Audit License.

Evgeny Orlovskiy will become a CIPS Consulting partner in Strategy & Operations in Russia. Evgeny has already been instrumental in growing CIPS revenue, and his sales will account for approximately half of CIPS revenue in FY14. Going forward, he will work to grow revenue even further, by actively targeting industrial products companies. He will also focus on developing strategic client relationships. Evgeny will also develop and sell service offerings in the areas of strategy, transformation and innovation. Evgeny has a masters in Public Administration, has made numerous presentations in Russia and Ukraine, and has been a member of various committees and advisory councils.

Olaf Preller, Assurance partner within the Inbound group in Moscow who was originally seconded from PwC Germany, will lead the German Business Group. He will be focused on further strengthening our position within the German business community. Olaf is a German national, who is fluent in both German and Russian. Olaf is a licensed German Tax Advisor and German Chartered Accountant.

Natalia Rakova will be a partner in the Financial Services Consulting practice. Over the last 3 years, Natalia has helped build this practice into a USD10 million business, and she has personally contributed about 30% of the team's revenue in the last 2 years. She has a strong track record in quality service delivery and sales - using small projects as a door opener to larger projects and recurring work. She will continue to build relationships and lead projects for current clients and will target opportunities with FS clients, mainly in the Russian market. Natalia is also responsible for knowledge management and developing skills within the FS Consulting team. She has a degree in Finance and is ACCA certified.

As a partner, Alla Romanchuk will lead the Russian HRC practice, where she will drive solutions related to organizational redesign, performance measurement and cost reduction, while developing new HR consulting products and value propositions. She will strengthen relationships and oversee service delivery on a number of HRC clients. She will also work closely with colleagues in Advisory, Assurance, and TLS, to identify and pursue XLoS opportunities in the market. Alla has a MBA and Economics degree, and she is an active contributor to external marketing activities and presentations.

Ekaterina Ryabova will become the partner responsible for the Global Compliance Services (GCS) group within TMAS (Tax Management and Accounting Services) in Russia. Ekaterina has already contributed to the growth and development of this practice by increasing sales of accounting outsourcing projects, building up the delivery centre in Kazan and standardising processes. Going forward, she will seek to increase GCS revenue from Russia's involvement in global compliance contracts, expand the client portfolio in various industrial sectors, target opportunities for the use of Kazan delivery centre for joint projects with Kazakhstan and other CIS countries GCS practices , and work more closely with PwC UK and other network firms as a sales channel. Ekaterina has a diploma in English and International Economic Relations.