The director left the management company

Irina Kalashnikova has left the post of director of the management company of the Ingria project. Having failed to find a replacement within a month, the Committee for Economic Development, Industrial Policy and Trade (KERPPiT) began thinking about the legal division of the company.

Irina Kalashnikova left the post of director of JSC Technopark of St. Petersburg (the management company of the Ingria project) on November 2, 2012. Ms. Kalashnikova did not specify the reason for leaving the company and her future place of work. According to a representative of the St. Petersburg Committee for Economic Development, Industrial Policy and Trade overseeing the project, the ex-director wrote a statement a month before leaving, but a replacement for this position has not yet been found.

"Ingria" is a 100% state project. The area of the technopark site is 45 hectares (it is located opposite the Ulitsa Dybenko metro station), which should accommodate 320 thousand square meters. m of construction and 4.9 thousand parking spaces. It is planned that about 200 resident companies will operate on the territory of the technology park, providing 14 thousand jobs. The first stage is financed from the budget of St. Petersburg. Over the years, subsidies from the federal budget were also planned, but the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications did not allocate them due to the unavailability of supporting documentation from Ingria. It is planned to involve funds from private investors to ensure the second stage, which will amount to 66% of the total project budget of 30 billion rubles. At the moment, the city has invested about 10% of this amount.

In 2013, the company plans to complete the internal engineering infrastructure of the quarter, complete the construction of two business incubator buildings (a government contract with the Komstroi company in the amount of 450 million rubles) and design the administration building. The city has concluded agreements with Microsoft and Kaspersky Lab, which can become anchor residents of the technology park. Similar agreements were reached by JSC Technopark of St. Petersburg with the companies DataArt and the Scientific and Technical Center North-Western Laboratory.

Irina Kalashnikova led the technology park for less than a year. Her predecessor Anton Potapov headed the project for seven months. Experts say the reason for this “turnover” is the slowness of the system of publicly funded innovation projects. “It contradicts the management style of modern managers, based on customer focus and the ability to make operational decisions. Unfortunately, we were not able to work with any of the directors of the Ingria technology park for more than a year,” says Olga Andreeva, head of the Development Services department of the Finnish company Technopolis.

According to her, Technopolis has expressed interest in financing the Ingria project together with the city and other investors since 2007, but this issue still remains unresolved precisely because of the bureaucratization of the management company.

Alexey Yakovlev, head of the department for media relations, marketing and congress and exhibition activities of KERPPiT, believes that one of the reasons for Ms. Kalashnikova’s departure could be the combination of two functions. In addition to the construction of the technology park, the director had to simultaneously manage a structural division of OJSC Technopark of St. Petersburg - the Ingria business incubator. At the same time, the business incubator has been operating on rented premises since 2008 and serves 83 residents, and the technology park is only at the stage of creating the internal engineering infrastructure. Its construction is planned to be completed in 2015.

According to Alexey Yakovlev, the discrepancy between the pace of development of these areas, and subsequently the departure of Irina Kalashnikova, prompted KERPPiT to create a plan to divide the Ingria project into two legal entities. One of them will oversee the construction of the technology park, the second will manage the Ingria business incubator. A decision on this issue must be made by the end of 2012. During the same period, KERPPiT plans to find leaders of new organizations from relevant areas of activity.

Currently, the duties of director of JSC Technopark of St. Petersburg are performed by the director of economics and finance of the company, Lyudmila Dzhikaeva. The position of director of the Ingria business incubator has been held since October 2012 by Roman Isakov, who previously worked at Exigen Services. KERPPiT does not rule out that Mr. Isakov may become director of the legally independent business incubator Ingria.

Elena Bolshakova

"Ingria" will be divided into two