‘He will be useful for you’ — Rustam Minnikhanov introduces Nizhnekamskneftekhim’s new helmsman

The old and new directors of Nizhnekamskneftekhim were noted, and Sberbank’s school of the future was presented at a meeting of the Board of Directors

The new and previous directors of Nizhnekamskneftekhim were welcomed by generals of Tatarstan petrochemistry at a meeting of the Board of Directors of Tatneftekhiminvest-holding under Rustam Minnikhanov on 28 February. Azat Bikmurzin who left the post was awarded the order For Merits to the Republic of Tatarstan, while Ayrat Safin who joined the enterprise received a positive recommendation from the republic’s president. Also, Realnoe Vremya’s correspondent listened to a presentation of School 21 — a project in which Kazan outperformed Novosibirsk and Saint Petersburg in the fight for the right to open Sberbank’s school of the future.

Get to know him better: he will be useful for you

During a meeting of the Board of Directors of Tatneftekhiminvest-holding on 28 February, President Rustam Minnikhanov introduced new helmsman of Nizhnekamskneftekhim Ayrat Safin to the management of Tatarstan. According to him, the new head did a good service working at Nizhnekamskneftekhim first and at Kazanorgsintez then. Adviser to TAIF JSC’s Director General of Strategic Development Albert Shigabutdinov added that his candidacy was approved by the Tatarstan president. “Get to know him better: he will be useful for you. He comes from Nizhnekamsk, worked in Kazan and now he is back in his homeland,” the Tatarstan president recommended Safin to the management.

Previous head of the petrochemical giant Azat Bikmurzin received the order For Merits to the Republic of Tatarstan from the president. “Today I have a pleasant mission, I am asking to support me,” Minnikhanov said. Bikmurzin was marked for successes and long-term fruitful work. It should be reminded that Bikmurzin has been at the helm of the petrochemical giant from 2014 to 2020. He announced his desire to leave the post of director general at a meeting of the Board of Directors of Nizhnekamskneftekhim PJSC. The shareholders upheld the decision.

“Our colleague Bikmurzin finished his work at Nizhnekamskneftekhim, let’s give him a round of applause. Now he is considering possibilities of where he will be useful. He is a necessary person, he is very experienced, we will try not to miss him so that he won’t be poached,” Rustam Minnikhanov stressed.

According to Adviser to TAIF JSC’s Director General of Strategic Development Albert Shigabutdinov, Bikmurzin asked for resignation because he was changing a job. “Due to this, the Board of Directors of Nizhnekamskneftekhim appointed Safin Ayrat for this post with the president of Tatarstan’s approval at an unscheduled meeting on 27 February,” Albert Shigabutdinov said.

Go there at any time

The presentation of School 21 by Sberbank, which Herman Gref recently opened, became one of the components of that meeting. A cycle of tests at school will kick off in March already. Manager of the office of Bank Tatarstan of Sberbank Rushan Sakhbiyev explained what the school of the future in Kazan was like and why 60,000 people from all over the world wanted to get in.

Before his speech, the Tatarstan president asked those who had already been at School 21 to raise their arms. Nobody had. “First of all, you need it if you want to change it. There is School 21, but you don’t go there. You can go there at any time, find interesting people, it will be useful for you. And one can send people there from Nizhnekamsk, Almetyevsk. Go there anytime,” Minnikhanov who has already been at school in Moscow and Kazan twice despite his occupancy.

We will remind you that School 21 is an educational initiative of Sberbank based on a method of the school of the future used in the innovative French programming school Ecole 42 since 2013. School 21 trains world-class specialists in IT according to a unique educational method: without teachers, without lectures, without marks. A peer-to-peer method, or collective training, is at the heart of the method. Education at School 21 is free. A total of 20 schools operate around the globe including Silicon Valley. Russia has only two — in Moscow and Kazan. Moreover, Kazan went ahead of Novosibirsk and Saint Petersburg in the competition. In the end, a graduate of the Russian school is equal to western colleagues because education is given on one educational platform. The president said that the republic supported Sberbank’s project, provided a building (SINKH bought out the building of Spurt-bank), allocated money for maintenance, while Sberbank is responsible for the educational process.

Sakhbiyev said that the selection of students to the school was very strict. There were received over 60,000 (!) applicants, but a bit more than 1,500 reached the final selection. They will have to go through a four-week tour of tests, afterwards, only 500 people will be admitted to the school.

“We can only feel pity for those who want to get in through cronyism,” Rushan Sakhbiyev noted. “The intensity is so high that one can not swim out.”

Also, during the meeting of the holding’s board, Vice Direct of the Kurchatov Institute National Research Centre — State Research Institute of Genetics and Selection of Industrial Microorganisms Aleksandr Yanenko presented developments in biomass recycling with microorganisms with a changed genetic code. A deep grain conversion facility, which produced 80,000 tonnes of lysine — half of agricultural needs of Russia — was built in Belgorod Oblast by the institute’s technology. Its revenue totalled 3,2 billion rubles. Director General of DC Control CJSC Nikolay Kuzenkov, in turn, said about the opening of a factory manufacturing valves in Leninogorsk.

By Luiza Ignatyeva
Tatarstan