E-commerce is applicable to Russia, just as it's applicable to any other market.
At Ozon, salaries are evaluated every year based on market benchmarks which are gender neutral.
Once in a while, I still witness occasionally sexist behavior and comments from men (which experience has taught me you should always deflect with humour rather than anger). Old habits die hard, after all, and it's unrealistic to expect dinosaurs to fall silent overnight.
Ozon.ru is made up of four businesses. Ozon.ru is an online retailer, O'Courier focuses on shipping, Ozon.Travel, and our most recent acquisition, Sapato, the leading online shoe and accessory retailer.
Everyone in the United States asks me about being a woman CEO. To be honest, it has had no impact on my career. While I was at BCG, it didn't matter whether you were a man or a woman. The only thing that mattered was that you were good at your job.
My advice to anyone would be to focus on your current job and be the best at it. The rest will take care of itself.
All the big online retailers are looking at how to enter the Russian market.
Within Internet users, you have a big chunk of people who can convert to online shopping.
I have American friends in France, and when I meet with them, they tell me about everything that is wrong with France. I think there is a general expat syndrome, which means that whatever country you are in, you are always missing your own country and always thinking that the country you live in is actually not as good as it could be.
I tell my colleagues that it is actually all right to make mistakes, and I am worried when they do not make them, because it means that they either hide them from me or are not trying hard enough.
I do not like the idea that a Russian company cannot be successful without Western experience. I think that, at the end of the day, it is a question of bringing benchmarks from other countries. So far, the golden benchmark has been the West.
The Priceline Group is a truly globally-scaled digital e-commerce Fortune 500 company operating world-class brands. I look forward to contributing to the Group by identifying new opportunities and operating synergies that enhance its already strong track record as a global digital pioneer.
When online business first appeared, a lot of operations would take your order and then disappear.
When a handful of tech giants are gatekeepers to the world's data, it's no surprise that the debate about balancing progress against privacy is framed as 'pro-data and, therefore, innovation' versus 'stuck in the Dark Ages'.
It simply isn't acceptable for the likes of Google, Facebook, Amazon and others, which amass data by the terabyte, to say, 'Don't worry, your information's safe with us, as all sorts of rules protect you' - when all evidence suggests otherwise.
The history of business has shown that companies usually only regulate themselves if they're forced to by legislation, or out of self-interest - often in the shape of a marketable message that will help sell more products.
Not only is self-regulation largely a fantasy, but repeated scandals across multiple industries have proved that companies are fundamentally incapable of self-regulating for the greater good.
A great deal of energy is spent daily on pushing the Russian e-commerce boom along while managing all aspects of growth and development along the way.
There is very little room for relaxation, but as long as I capitalize on those brief moments of peace, I'm okay with that.
Money, while clearly helpful in solving myriad problems, can often conceal a business's real flaws. It can also risk rigidifying a company's business model at the very moment it should be in 'customer discovery' mode or iterating around market opportunities.
