I am unsure as to which category it would be better to put myself. I am a Mother and I have 8 fantastic children aged from 7 to 27. I am incredibly proud of my kids and extremely happy to be their mom and to be inspired by them. I can also select the role of a Professional because I have been practicing law for more than 20 years. I have numerous awards for this work and have been ranked by top national and international ranking agencies. I am a very happy Professional because my profession became my real passion and have helped to create the personality I am today. During the last 12 years of my life, I am also an Entrepreneur and it is a very important part of myself. The choice to be an Entrepreneur was not an easy choice for me. I decided to start my own business at the age of 34 when I was a professional with a successful career and I have never felt sorry about this choice. I've been fortunate to be able to build my business around my professional interests - law and consulting. Building a successful career requires patience, energy, discipline, creativity, planning, execution, oversight - all at once. When I took a Partner position of a consulting company I was tasked with building an entire international M&A practice from the ground up. At this particular moment, I realized that my true calling in this life (and I am really good at this) - activating the talents that surround me. Now we have a fantastic team of 60 professionals - very qualified and committed people, it is our real business asset. By the way, 70% of our team are women.
By my own example, I am trying to demonstrate to others that it is possible for a woman to combine a successful business, a career of a professional, a social role and a role of a mother in a big family. However, any kind of positive experience should not serve a signal to repeat it. The society often demands that women be successful in all areas: family, motherhood, housekeeping, and career. Now you can see it almost everywhere - in any country, at any level of economic and social development - the society is waiting for women's achievements. I think that my own success story and my own experience of combining family, career, and business is the result of the coincidence of a huge number of factors. I can tell that this experience, as well as my role model, are not for everyone and certainly not to prove something to society and to support this way its demanding position. On the contrary, the active promotion of such role models should be diminished, and the modern unfair and unjustified pressure should be ignored. I am happy with such a combination of different role models in my life because it was my choice but if I try to share my knowledge and my experience with other women - I never teach about how to achieve this life balance that I have and how to organize their lives the way I did. I am trying to persuade women do not try to implement what others require from them and to make their own choices. I chose the role of a Mother and of a Professional and the path of Entrepreneur because I personally wanted to combine it. Other women may have other choices, and they need to choose and to do only what brings them happiness and satisfaction. There is always a choice. Most importantly, at any stage of her life, every day and every hour a woman should think and ask herself: what do I want in life, what role I see for myself now, what experience brings me maximum satisfaction and happiness today? And then, they can plan and act. My experience and the experiences of many other business women can help but will never specify "how to do it right and which way will be better personally for them".
10 facts about me:
1. I have 8 kids aged 7-27. (to avoid additional questions - yes, I gave birth to them myself and I raised them).
2. I love traveling - I visited 75+ countries. Normally I travel with my family (even my youngest son has already visited about 25 countries) but I have also lots of business trips.
3. I live between three countries - Italy, Switzerland, and Russia.
4. I speak 5 languages and 4 of them are working languages.
5. During my life, I was living in many countries (from several months up to several years) - USA, Ireland, Switzerland, France, Italy, Cyprus, and even Seychelles...so I feel really comfortable at any culture and in almost any environment.
6. I am interested in psychology and now I am trying to get additional education in this field.
7. When I was a young girl I was working as a model (including shooting for glossy magazines).
8. I was a member of Mensa International (one of the largest society for people with the highest IQ in the world).
9. My first job was in my teen years was translating and guiding Moscow tours for foreign tourists and business travelers. From a very early age, I realized that good communication skills are main criteria for business success.
10. I love playing tennis and for 25 years I am a major supporter of Italian football club Juventus.
Professional bio:
Olga has been practicing law for more than 20 years and specializes in support of cross-border transactions, including international taxation and foreign corporate law, the creation of international holding mechanisms and support of investments. Olga has been a Managing Partner of a leading law firm O2Consulting since its incorporation. Prior to that, Olga worked in several national and international law firms. In 2006 Olga took the post of Vice-president and the Head of international law practice at the consulting company AGA MANAGEMENT, and in 2008 she became a Partner of the company. After restructuring in 2010 the company headed by Olga continued its operations under the brand of O2Consulting. Now Olga also leads a Swiss-based multi-family office Fidentia Trust AG which is a part of O2Consulting Group.
Olga is a qualified attorney, member of Moscow City Bar and Association of Russian lawyers.
In about 20 years of practice, Olga has closed about 70 M&A deals, including major projects in energy and infrastructure, mining, development and construction, banking&finance, telecommunications, high-tech, agriculture, transportation, real estate, venture capital, IT, retail trade, food and beverages and other industries.
The business community knows Olga as the leading specialist in the field of structuring and support for comprehensive international transactions where she acts both as a legal advisor and a negotiator. Olga is a really creative and talented lawyer and possesses an exceptional skill at holding constructive dialogue, finding original solutions and new ways, and as a result, reaching a compromise even in cases of absolutely opposite positions.
Olga graduated from the Moscow Academy of Law (MGUA) summa cum laude with a specialization in international law and successfully completed a course of international law in the Indiana University (USA). She wrote many articles and publications un the media and was the main character of glossy magazines, business publications, and documentary films, as well as a speaker at numerous conferences and business forums, including WEF in Davos. She is fluent in Russian, English, French and Italian.
Olga is an exceptional person who has succeeded in a business career and the family where she is the mother of eight kids.
