New Blog: Kendrick White of Marchmont News

This week’s new blog is something of an oddity – Kendrick White is one of that rare breed of ‘corporate’ Russia bloggers with something interesting to say.

Kendrick is the General Director of a relatively new company called Marchmont which undertakes consulting and, more recently, has launched a daily regional Russian Business News website – Marchmont News. It’s an unusual topic for a news site – a little too small a niche, some might say. But I think it’s a niche that is only going to grow, and I can’t see any real competitors for Marchmont at the moment, which gives them a great opportunity to dominate their niche.

Anyway, I’m not here to write about Marchmont News (which is a very good news resource, by the way), I’m here to introduce you to the new blog started by Kendrick.

Kendrick is (according to his bio) an expert in corporate finance and private equity fund management, and has spent more than 15 years working full time in Russia.

His blog is only two posts old at the moment, but I think that we can get a pretty good idea of what it’s about – doing business in Russia based on personal experience (as opposed to folk like me, who know our politics, but have absolutely no practical experience of the reality of business in Russia). As his blog gathers pace it has the potential to be a very useful and informative read.

I particularly liked his most recent post, which explores how Russian bureaucracy is stifling innovation and, ultimately, it’s economic prospects. Here’s an extract:

My own small company needed not less than six admin employees to manage the daily reports required by the authorities. I could hardly fathom what had to be reported in such minute detail to the local tax, banking, and who knows which other authorities.

And all to show who was working, when, how many hours, pregnant or not pregnant, on vacation (where?) or in their place, on time? And why? Who else cares about all of this? It’s my company, right?

But no, because there is so little trust between parties, all facts and figures must be checked and rechecked, and then cross checked again. Taxes must be assessed, fines must be found, liars and cheaters identified and dealt with, all in the guise of a “cat and mouse” game between those in authority to control and those trying ceaselessly to work around it.

[...]

The realization of any innovative idea requires fundamental trust by all parties. There needs to be a functioning, fair, legal system that that people respect. And there needs to be public and private support for alternative financing for each stage of an enterprises evolutionary development, from seed capital to public markets.

If an entrepreneur is constantly fighting to get around the bureaucracy and overcome an arbitrary legal system, and I am not even talking about the problem of corruption here, but rather just the struggle to initiate something new – then how can a culture of innovation take root and grow?

Innovation, by its very nature is a wide spread, bottom up process involving entrepreneurs taking risks at every stage of a products development. The end result can be the creation of a new innovative winning design which can change the world – and make the creator as rich as Bill Gates or Sergei Brin.

I know Kendrick is keen for feedback on his posts, so please do head over and leave a comment or two. It’d be good to get a discussion going on this topic (for purely selfish reasons if nothing else – I know nothing about it, and need to be educated!).

Plug Your New Russia Blog

I’m always on the lookout for new blogs about Russia. If you write one, or know of one, send me a quick message, and I’ll write a brief introductory post here on Siberian Light.

Tagged as: Russia Blogs