Kaspersky natalia ivanovna infowatch. Natalya Kasperskaya: “Love of risk and money are the main qualities of an entrepreneur

The most influential and authoritative woman in the country in the field of information technology was the co-founder of the famous global company Kaspersky Lab. Natalya Kasperskaya is one of the richest women in Russia and a mother of five children. Now she is the CEO of the InfoWatch group of companies, which she founded after leaving the IT giant (Kaspersky Lab).

early years

Natalya Ivanovna Kasperskaya (née Shtutser) was born on February 5, 1966 in Moscow. Parents by profession are engineers, worked at one of the closed defense institutes. Father, Ivan Mikhailovich, was in charge of the laboratory. One of her ancestors, great-grandfather Ivan Ivanovich Shtutser, is the author of the popular 19th century geography textbook.

During her school years, she was distinguished by increased social activity and was respected by her classmates. She was on the board of the school pioneer squad, then went on to be promoted to the district pioneer headquarters. In high school she was elected as a Komsomol organizer.

An active Komsomol member for five years has been playing basketball at a children's and youth sports school. The girl quite seriously wanted to become a veterinarian, but soon she had to part with this dream. Natalia was not very good at studying chemistry. In the eighth grade, her parents decided to transfer her from an ordinary secondary school to a school with a physical and mathematical bias at the MAI (Moscow Aviation Institute).

Carier start

After leaving school, she entered the Moscow State University... But according to the results of the entrance exams, she did not pass the competition, having lost half a point. She translated documents to the Moscow Institute of Electronic Engineering (MIEM), where these marks were enough for admission. Natalya Kasperskaya studied at the Faculty of Applied Mathematics from 1984 to 1989. Graduate work was devoted to mathematical modeling of the cooling process of a nuclear reactor. She later received her BA in Business from the UK Open University.

After graduating from the institute, Natalia was assigned as a research assistant to the Moscow Central Scientific and Design Bureau. She worked for only six months, after which she went on maternity leave. Natalya Kasperskaya's career in information technology began in 1994, when she was 28 years old. A young woman was hired as a software seller in a new store, which was opened by a former teacher Evgeny Kaspersky High school KGB of the USSR. Wage was about $ 50.

Business development

In the fall of 1994, Natalya Ivanovna Kaspersky became responsible for the sales of AVP (AntiViral Toolkit Pro) as a department head. The program has been developed since 1991 by a team of programmers under the guidance of her husband. Thanks to her activity, over the next few years, it was possible to create good channels distribution of the software product, organize technical support and begin expansion into foreign markets.

Starting with sales of $ 100-200 per month in 1994, the company has grown to over $ 130,000 a year later. Product sales began to grow rapidly, reaching over 600,000 in 1996 and over a million the following year. The profit was divided equally between the Kaspersky team and the parent company. By 1997, the Kaspersky spouses understood the potential of the business and decided to separate into an independent business.

Creation of "Kaspersky Lab"

In the summer of 1997, Natalya Ivanovna Kaspersky became the initiator of the Kaspersky Lab organization. It was on her initiative that the company received this name. For over 10 years she worked as the general director of Kaspersky Lab. In an IT company, she owned 10% of the shares, 50% - to Eugene and 20% went to two programmers-developers. Antivirus sales continued to grow rapidly, reaching $ 67 million in 2006.

In 2007, she was removed from the management of the Laboratory due to her divorce and disagreements with Eugene. Natalia remained in the company as the chairman of the newly created board of directors. By 2011, she finally parted ways with Kaspersky Lab., Her shares were bought out by other shareholders. Under Natalia's leadership, the once small Russian IT company has grown into a global corporation with offices around the world. Capitalization in 2011 was estimated at $ 1.3 billion with annual revenues of $ 700 million. Natalia's personal fortune was estimated at 220-270 million USD. e.

Organizing your business

After the division of the business, as part of the payment, she went to InfoWatch. Natalya Kasperskaya decided to start developing the company's software product, which was aimed at protecting the data of large businesses and was intended for corporations with at least 300 stations. After the arrival of the new management, sales began to grow by 60-70% per year.

Today Infowatch has grown into a group of companies specializing in protecting businesses from internal threats and targeted external attacks. The group holds approximately 50% of the local confidential data market. Regular clients are large Russian government agencies, private and state corporations. The company is actively exploring foreign markets, developing business in Europe, the Middle East and Southeast Asia.

Biography

NATALIA KASPERSKAYA

President of the InfoWatch group of companies, co-founder of Kaspersky Lab

Graduated from the Moscow Institute of Electronic Engineering (MIEM) with a degree in Applied Mathematics.

Co-founder of Kaspersky Lab, headed the company for 10 years as CEO. During this time, Kaspersky Lab has gone from an unknown startup to one of the leaders in the international IT market.

In 2007, Natalya Kasperskaya became the head of InfoWatch, a company that develops innovative solutions for protecting corporations from internal and external threats.

Natalia Kasperskaya is:

• the head of the working group in the direction of "Information security" in the framework of the program "Digital Economy Russian Federation»,
• Chairman of the Board of the Association of Software Developers (ARPP) "Otechestvenny Soft",
• member of the Expert Council on Russian Software under the Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media of the Russian Federation,
• Member of the Supervisory Board of Otkritie Bank.

Natalya Kasperskaya is a laureate of the Women in Technology competition in the Middle East in the category Best Technology Business Entrepreneur and other international competitions.

Biography

RUSTEM KHAYRETDINOV

Vice President of InfoWatch Group

Graduated from the Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics of Moscow State University. Lomonosov and postgraduate studies at the Institute of Mechanics of Multiphase Systems of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

For over 20 years he has been working in the field of corporate information technology and information security. He headed commercial units in leading IT companies: Steepler, Dell Systems, Gorod-Info, Kaspersky Lab, Netwell.

In 2004, he became the head of the commercial block of InfoWatch and over the course of several years made InfoWatch one of the leaders on the Russian market.

In 2010 he defended his thesis for the degree of candidate of economic sciences, proposing an innovative methodology for optimizing costs for corporate information security. Leads an active teaching activities in universities and corporate universities, published in specialized and business publications.

Biography

NIKOLAY ZDOBNOV

Executive Director of InfoWatch Group

Nikolay Zdobnov was appointed executive director of InfoWatch Group in July 2018.

His area of ​​responsibility is the implementation of the strategic plan of the group of companies, operational management of structural divisions and subsidiaries, optimization of business processes and organizational development.

Nikolay started his career at InfoWatch as a sales manager in 2010, later became Deputy Director of Sales, and later - Director of Product Development. Completed a number of successful projects to improve and automate work processes throughout the company.

Previously, Nikolay worked at Softline as an information security product manager, and then headed the internal startup Softline Linux Solutions. Prior to that, he worked for several years on the customer's side, where he was responsible for information Technology and information security.

Graduated from the Nizhny Novgorod State University named after N.I. Lobachevsky with a degree in Computer Technologies and Information Security.

Biography

Konstantin Levin

vice president of sales

Konstantin is responsible for the business development of InfoWatch Group in all regions of the company's presence. Joining the InfoWatch team in 2007, he worked his way up from an account manager to a sales director in three years, and has been heading InfoWatch's commercial department for over 10 years.

During this time, the number of InfoWatch clients has grown several times, and Konstantin has more than a dozen major transactions and a well-functioning work of a geographically distributed division of five dozen employees on his account.

Before InfoWatch Konstantin had time to try himself in different types activities from accounting and consulting to software testing, marketing and product management. Realizing that he certainly wants to be at the forefront, he started selling information security solutions.

Levin graduated from the Moscow State Institute of Radio Engineering, Electronics and Automation with a degree in Information Security Management.

Biography

MARGARITA AMALITSKAYA

VP of Marketing

Strategic and operational marketing and product management are the areas of responsibility of Margarita Amalitskaya.

Margarita has over 20 years of experience in business development, product management, as well as technological and strategic marketing in leading IT companies that develop software and solutions for the Russian and international markets.

Previously, Margarita worked in ABBYY, Kaspersky Lab, Samsung Electronics and other IT projects, where she successfully completed the set business tasks in terms of multiple sales growth, increasing market share and entering new market segments.

Margarita graduated from the Physics Department of Moscow State University. Lomonosov, has additional education in the field of marketing management.

Biography

ANDREY BIRYUKOV

Technical Director

As the CTO of InfoWatch, Andrey Biryukov is responsible for maintaining the company's technological leadership, innovation policy and the development of new products that form the basis of business growth.

From 2014 to 2018, Andrey led the development from scratch of a key product of Kaspersky Lab for protecting critical information infrastructure. Previously, as a technical leader, he led a number of projects for developing distributed Enterprise solutions for Quest Software customers, whose products are used by 130,000 organizations in 100 countries around the world.
In total, he has been developing software for 19 years.

Andrey graduated from the Faculty of Management and Applied Mathematics of the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. In 2006 he received a PhD in Physics and Mathematics from the Computing Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences named after V.I. A.A. Dorodnitsyn.

Biography

VADIM SARALIDZE

Vice President of Public Relations and Government Relations

Biography

ALEXEY NAGORNY

vice president for new projects

Alexey has extensive management experience and successful new product launches.

At InfoWatch, he is responsible for finding promising directions and developing new market segments.

From 2011 to 2012, Alexey was engaged in the development of solutions in the field of mobile development, during the same period several services under the osmino brand and a secure smartphone "Taigafon" were introduced to the market.

In 2015, Alexey joined InfoWatch.

Biography

VYACHESLAV POSOKHOV

Deputy Executive Director for Operations

In the position of Deputy Executive Director for Operations, Vyacheslav is responsible for the formation and implementation of the IT strategy of the InfoWatch Group of Companies, management of key IT projects, overseeing the work of the company's project office.

He joined InfoWatch in 2011 as a corporate trainer and worked his way up to the director of the customer services department. With the participation of Vyacheslav, in 2016 InfoWatch became one of the finalists of the international competition for the best contact centers for technical support of customers "Crystal Headset".

In 2008, he began his career at Acronis software company as a technical support engineer, and then grew to an expert technical support engineer and customer service quality assurance analyst.

In 2010, Vyacheslav received a master's degree in Informatics and Computer Engineering from the National Research University Moscow Institute of Electronic Technology (MIET). In 2013, he graduated from the Faculty of Management and Politics of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (U) of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia with a degree in State and Municipal Administration.

Biography

ANDREY AREFIEV

Product Development Manager

As the head of the product development department, Andrey Arefiev is responsible for the formation and development of the product line, and, thereby, for creating a long-term competitive advantage for the company.

Andrey joined InfoWatch in 2014 as a product manager and launched the development of three new product projects. In 2018 he was appointed to a leadership position.

From 2002 to 2013, he worked at Quest Software, first as a Program Manager, then headed the department. His main focus was the development of Enterprise solutions for automating Active Directory management processes, these products were used in 95% of Fortune 500 companies and brought in tens of millions of dollars for the company.

Has 15 years of experience in software development as a full stack developer and project manager. Andrey graduated from the Physics Department of Moscow State University. Lomonosov in 1994, later, as part of an international team, he studied the Earth's ionosphere at the IKI RAS. Head of the department at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology.

Kasperskaya Natalia Ivanovna

Kasperskaya (Fitting) Natalya Ivanovna- CEO of InfoWatch, a developer of systems for protecting confidential information from internal threats. For over 10 years she was the head of Kaspersky Lab.

Biography

Natalya Ivanovna Shtutser (later Kasperskaya) was born on February 5, 1966. Parents are typical representatives of the "technical intelligentsia". Only child was born late by those standards: my father was already 46 years old, mother - 30. Parents - engineers, worked in "closed" institutes, are always busy.

As a teenager, she went in for sports, for a long time she played basketball in the Youth Sports School. In the winter I went skiing in the Moscow region, and in the summer I was fond of swimming. She also collected stamps, badges and Soviet coins, painted portraits of her acquaintances and sang in the school choir.

In an interview, Natalya Kasperskaya said that she dreamed of becoming a veterinarian:

“I really enjoyed playing with animals. I even seriously thought about choosing such a profession, but when I moved to high school, I started having completely insurmountable problems with chemistry. And since my parents are "techies", then there was no particular alternative. Naturally, I was advised to enter a technical university ”.

The last two school years studied at the Physics and Mathematics School at the Moscow Aviation Institute, then entered the Moscow Institute of Electronic Engineering (MIEM) at the Faculty of Applied Mathematics.

1986: Acquaintance with Eugene Kaspersky

In 1994 she came to work at STC Kami, where she headed the AVP antivirus project.

1997: Co-founder of Kaspersky Lab

In 1997, Natalya convinced her husband to found her own company and make the name a brand. The founding father handled the technical part. Natalya Kasperskaya became the CEO of Kaspersky Lab and was in charge of sales, human resources and entering international markets.

Initially, Kaspersky Lab employed six people, but gradually it grew into an international group of companies headquartered in Moscow, ten foreign representative offices and a staff of more than 500 people. To questions like: "What is the company's success?", "Who did more for success?" etc. Natalia was responsible for her life dozens of times. The company turned out to be in the right place at the right time, it was very successful - there was just a market growth, that is, the market was still new, this is the first thing. Secondly, in Russia it was generally not endless, that is, the Kaspersky, in fact, were pioneers in this sense in the field of software. The third is that the competitors did not know where to go either, that is, everyone wandered blindly and made many mistakes in the same way. All were on an equal footing.

In October 2007, Natalya Kasperskaya became the CEO of the company and the sole owner of InfoWatch, a developer of systems for protecting confidential information from internal threats.

2011: Sale of a part of a share in Kaspersky Lab

On January 20, 2011 it became known that the American private equity fund General Atlantic acquired a large stake in Kaspersky Lab. This is the first time a professional institutional investor entered a company in the history of an antivirus developer.

The parties do not disclose either the size of the share in Kaspersky Lab acquired by the Americans, or the amount paid, but report that upon completion of the deal, General Atlantic will become the second largest shareholder of the Laboratory. The largest shareholder of the company will remain Evgeny Kaspersky, who has a controlling stake.

Part of the shares transferred to the General Atlantic fund previously belonged to one of the company's former shareholders, the other part, which Yevgeny Buyakin called "symbolic", was issued additionally. According to CNews, the main seller of the shares was the co-founder and chairman of the board of directors of the Laboratory, Natalya Kasperskaya. Eugene Kaspersky's shares did not participate in the deal.

Natalya Kasperskaya told CNews that the share of the new investor in the Laboratory will be "less" than 20%. According to her, she retained a significant part of the company's shares, and she has no plans to leave the chair of the chairman of the board of directors, "unless the shareholders make a different decision."

She plans to invest the proceeds in her own projects. These are the developer of solutions for protection against leaks Infowatch, the Nanosemantics company, which deals with semantic analysis of written speech, and the Cribrum project, which studies the reputation of companies by analyzing their mentions on the Internet and other media environments.

The initiator of the deal was General Atlantic: its chief executive John Bernstein says that the fund has been looking for a manufacturer of security solutions for investment for a long time and "about a year ago turned to Kaspersky Lab with an offer of cooperation."

According to the agency's source, the motive for the crime of the Savelyevs and their friends was the desire to pay off the ransom received for loans made in one of the banks.

The cybercriminals searched the Internet for a potential victim for the ransom. Their choice fell on Ivan Kaspersky after they found his home and work addresses on his Vkontakte page.

At the same time, according to the Kommersant newspaper, the abduction was organized by a repeatedly convicted "professional criminal", and the attackers followed the young man for several months, choosing a scheme for committing a crime.

The interlocutors of LifeNews said that the abduction was carried out "unprofessionally." At about 8:15 a.m. Ivan was filmed by surveillance cameras in the Strogino metro station closest to his place of work, and at about 9 a.m. the kidnappers forced him to call his family and hand over the terms of a ransom of 3 million euros.

The second evidence of the unprofessionalism of the criminals was called the keeping of the prisoner in the same house in the garden association "Grove" near Sergiev Posad, where they lived themselves.

• On the evening of April 21, 2011, LifeNews reported that a ransom had been paid to the kidnappers of Ivan Kaspersky, the amount of which was not disclosed. After the prisoner was released, law enforcement sources said the media were misinformed to appease the kidnappers.

In an interview with RSN, Natalya Kasperskaya said that her son was not tortured and was kept in handcuffs locked in a bath. The kidnappers constantly changed the phone numbers from which they made ransom calls. While law enforcement was busy releasing young man, she and her husband "sat on Petrovka in a separate room and waited for the kidnapper to call." On the last day, the criminal did not get in touch, and I.Kaspersky's parents learned that everything was over, after the information appeared in the media.

“On Sunday, at Easter, we were still waiting for a call, but we already saw that operatives were increasingly conferring without our participation, they were clearly preparing for something,” Ashmanov says. “This is a very dangerous moment when vectors diverge: the operatives need to capture the kidnappers, and the parents - so that the kidnapped child is returned safe and sound.” After lunch, the operatives announced that there would be no more calls, the kidnappers had been identified and caught, and now they were going after Ivan, who was no longer in danger. The operation ended in the late afternoon. Ivan was released. Five participants in the abduction were detained (three are members of the same family), four of them are now under arrest, an investigation is underway. Evgeny and Natalya Kasperskaya with Ashmanov were invited to the office of the head of the department, congratulated and offered to celebrate the happy event with vodka with coarsely chopped sausage and cheese. His mother saw Ivan only at 4 o'clock in the morning, before that he was taken from him.

• According to the official information of the Central Internal Affairs Directorate, Ivan Kaspersky was released from the hands of the kidnappers only on Sunday, April 24, 2011. By this time, his whereabouts had already been found on the mobile phone... Information about this was made public by the official representative of the Moscow city police department Viktor Biryukov. According to law enforcement officers, the condition of Ivan Kaspersky is "satisfactory".

According to official information from the Central Internal Affairs Directorate, the release was carried out as a result of a military operation by officers of the FSB, MUR and special forces. The operation in the area of ​​Sergiev Posad "took place without a single shot."

The kidnappers were scheduled to meet for the transfer of the ransom in Moscow, where the entire family of the Savelyevs and one of their accomplices went. The cars they were driving were stopped for a document check, and the perpetrators were detained.

At the same time, another group of capture entered the territory of the garden economy, where the prisoner was kept. Ivan Kaspersky was found in the bathhouse, where he was guarded by another accomplice of the Savelyev family.

Ashmanov did not rule out that the ultimate goal of the bandits was not ransom.

“I think they wanted to put pressure on Eugene Kaspersky or Natalia, the shareholders of Kaspersky Lab,” he says. "Perhaps we never heard the true demands."

2012: Purchase of 16% in the German antivirus company G Data

On October 15, 2012 it became known that Natalya Kasperskaya, who owns the InfoWatch holding, acquired 16.8% of the shares of the German anti-virus company G Data Software AG.

The shares were bought from several former minority shareholders, in particular from a Berlin-based venture capital firm. On October 23, at the annual meeting of GData shareholders, Natalya Kasperskaya will be elected to the board of directors of the German company.

The cooperation between Natalya Kasperskaya and G Data began in 1996, when the co-founder of the German company Kai Figge offered Natalia a partnership at the CeBIT exhibition in Hanover. Then Natalia headed the antivirus company Kaspersky Lab, and the two antivirus vendors agreed on technological cooperation.

As Natalya Kasperskaya herself stated, she has watched G Data for many years and believes that she "deserves more international success." “For several years, G Data has made a major technological breakthrough. As a member of the board of directors of G Data, I will work to strengthen the company's highest reputation at international market and I also want to bring my knowledge and experience in the antivirus industry to the company, ”Natalya noted.

As the InfoWatch press service commented to Tadviser, the company has long looked towards European companies, and this acquisition fits into its plans to promote it in this market. Moreover, this is not the last acquisition, but the press service refused to give more detailed comments. Further plans to increase the stake in G data are also unknown, as well as the cost of the acquisition.

2015: Foundation of the farm

As TAdviser found out, in the fall of 2015 Natalya Kasperskaya established the Green Lamb peasant farm. The farm is located in the suburbs, in picturesque places of the Serpukhov region, Natalya Kasperskaya confirmed to TAdviser. More details - in a separate one.

2017: Head of the Committee on information security

On August 2, 2017, Natalya Kasperskaya, President of InfoWatch Group of Companies (GC), was elected as the head of the Committee on Information Security, created in the Association of Software Developers "Otechestvenny Soft". The committee was formed as part of the implementation of the Digital Economy of the Russian Federation program, which determines the goals, objectives, directions and timing of the main measures of state policy to create the necessary conditions for the development of the digital economy in Russia.

2018: Natalya Kasperskaya became the owner of Neklis-bank

In February 2018, Natalya Kasperskaya, CEO of InfoWatch group of companies, spoke about how she was forced to become the owner of Neklis Bank. According to her, the deal was not made because of a good life: a credit institution is a "big headache". More details.

A family

Natalya Ivanovna has two children from her first marriage and two from her second. Natalya Kasperskaya has repeatedly stated that four children are not so many. And, if there was an opportunity earlier, she would give birth to more.

After the publication of a message on the ITpedia website that Natalya Kasperskaya was celebrating her birthday on February 5, readers had an idea to give something to the respected master of the Russian IT market. Being on a budget, they decided to donate a list of names for Natalia's fourth child. It was not known for certain who Natalia was waiting for - a girl or a boy. Therefore, the list of names spontaneously began to include both women and men. It may be an accident, but the name Maria, which the child eventually received, was on the ITpedia reader list long before her birthday.

• Trajan- real imperial Roman name, consonant with the professional interests of Natalia Ivanovna
• Klava- No comments
• Bagomir- bringing peace to software filled with bugs
• Optimisander- consonant with "optimizer" (occupation of Natalia's husband - Igor Ashmanov)
• Ipiona- there is an assumption that IPO is Natalia's desired goal
• Aytislav- Glory to information technology
• Insider- in tune with Natalia's professional interests
• Virusiliy- derivative on behalf of Vasily and the word "virus"
• Yuesbin- from USB - the main weapon of insiders, with whom Natalya Ivanovna is fighting
• Avira- antivirus name quite suitable for a person's name
• Folder- folder - a person with this name is doomed to become a good dad
• Exenia- from the extension of the executable file exe
• Kav- for son - from KAV - Kaspersky AntiVirus
• Keys- for my daughter - from KIS - Kaspersky Internet Security
• Kasperit- for son - abbreviated from surname and IT
• Masha!- just Maria, without reference to IT and profession.
• Runetta Igorevna- sonorous
• Verusoid- derived from the name Vera and the word "virus"
• Ivanka- Derived from Patronymic, First and Last Name, Natalya Ivanovna, very respected by me
• Skyper- a derivative of the Skype program, as well as meaning free communication with the whole world without borders
• Bluetooth or Bluetooth- you understand what the name is from
• Connectin- derivative of Constantine and Connect
• Immunita- with strong immunity
• Camputador and Camputador- Spanish names of computers, echoing with the Toreador

Hobby

He is fond of playing the guitar, alpine skiing, tourism, reading professional literature, likes to travel with friends and children. Fluent in English and German.

Quotes

• About Evgeny Kaspersky as a manager- Kaspersky is not a manager. He is engaged in other activities that have very little in common with the formal position of "CEO". Since Evgeny is the main shareholder of the company, he can appoint himself to any desired position.

• About the crisis at Kaspersky Lab- Unfortunately, over the past 4 years, the Laboratory has quite strongly focused its product portfolio (in fact) in the field of protection for Windows ... The problem is that modern technologies are developing quite rapidly - there are new platforms for which either there are no viruses, or they are very rare ... They need new types of protection ... Another threat to the market is free antiviruses, which, although gradually, are gaining more and more popularity ... The third problem that I would draw attention to is the so-called. targeted attacks. Those. attacks with a specific target. For example, special Trojans written for Alfa-Bank systems. Antiviruses are powerless against such threats. New solutions are needed. I do not exclude that they will come not from old market players, but from newcomers ... At one time I convinced Kaspersky and other shareholders that it is necessary to attract external capital just for the purpose of buying businesses and technologies in new interesting areas. We even managed to attract an investor, but, unfortunately, the idea of ​​development through acquisitions was blocked by Kaspersky ... Honestly, I do not see drivers of new growth within the company, which would enable LK to grow organically faster than the market. Consequently, the rate of business growth will continue to decline.
• About your own employment- Basically, I am engaged in the affairs of the company. Another 2-3 times a week, questions arise about the Kribrum project - this is a project for the automatic monitoring of social networks, Infowatch has a solid share in it. In third place is Nanosemantics, a company that works in the field of artificial intelligence... She is also known for her "massive" project - http://www.iii.ru. Now we are reworking it quite a bit and by the summer we plan to roll out something completely new. And the last week, for example, all my time was taken by the Tsebit exhibition ... I have a couple more small projects, but in them I take substantially less personal participation.
• About their teachers- I consider the head of Kami - Alexei Borisovich Remizov - to be my first business teacher. My second husband Igor Ashmanov, who has a number of high-tech businesses, had a huge influence on my formation as a businessman (or businesswoman ??) :).
• About the woman-president of Russia- We have so many women in the government. Two ministers and a vice-speaker, not counting a bunch of lower-ranking officials. Perhaps the next president will be a woman. It's just that a worthy candidate must appear (or rather, must) appear. So far, there are no such politicians on our horizon.
• Meeting with Vladimir Putin- Just three weeks ago, several representatives of the IT community of software developers met with the Prime Minister in the Novosibirsk Academgorodok and proposed a number of measures to stimulate domestic software development. The prime minister accepted our proposals, and, as far as I know, the relevant instructions have already been given to the ministries. In particular, we proposed introducing mandatory reporting by government departments and state-owned companies on the volume of purchased domestic and imported software. They offered some measures to support the state of patenting abroad, as well as the opportunity for high-tech sector enterprises to invest in development without the risk of being closed by the tax office for losses. The prime minister promised to think over these two points. There were several more proposals - to stimulate the export of high-tech products, to develop self-determined organizations, etc. The Prime Minister accepted these proposals and gave instructions to the responsible ministers.
»

The “godmother” of Kaspersky Labs, whose anti-virus programs are now installed on almost every second computer, was able back in 1994 to consider the potential of her husband as a programmer and the prospects of the IT direction. For the sake of preserving the business, Natalya Kasperskaya hid the divorce for a long time and until 2011 remained the CEO and co-owner of the Laboratory. Was able to build from scratch not only new family, but also a new business - the InfoWatch group of companies, which allowed maintaining the status of the most influential specialist in the IT world and becoming one of the richest women in Russia.

Dossier:

In detail

Today it's hard to figure it out, the success story of Natalya Ivanovna Kaspersky's business is a series of coincidences or carefully thought-out steps that helped a caring wife and mother of five children to become one of the most successful and wealthy women in Russia.

"Natalia's biography is very similar to the path to embodiment" american dream". For several years she was on parental leave, went to work, where in six years she turned from a modest computer hardware seller into the head of a leading and promising antivirus software company, ”her husband Yevgeny Kaspersky would later say.

And it all started with a frantic desire to help a talented husband, a programmer. Feeling the taste of entrepreneurship, Natalya insists in 1997 on opening her own company, which received her husband's surname with her light hand. And practically independently, heading Kaspersky Lab, he takes the business to the world level.

Even after a dramatic divorce, an ideological split with her first husband and a difficult division of shares in the business, she found the strength to start all over again .

By investing in InfoWatch, which the businesswoman received as a share in the division of the business, Kaspersky was able to make the company a leader in the IT direction.

According to the owner, “at the time of launch in 2003 there was only one name,” and in 2015, according to Forbes, InfoWatch's revenue exceeded RUB 1 billion.

Today (2017 - author's note) Natalya Kasperskaya is a co-owner of not only InfoWatch Group, but also jointly with Igor Ashmanov companies Nanosemantics, Kribrum, German company G Data Software AG, other high-tech companies, peasant farms "Green Lamb". He takes an active part in grant, public and government projects. She is a laureate and winner of Russian and international competitions in various business nominations. Included in more than 15 ratings of the most influential and successful people, including "The Richest Women in Russia", according to forbes.ru

Source: Forbes magazine

Childhood and adolescence: activist, athlete and diligent student

Natalya Ivanovna Kasperskaya, nee Shtutser, was born into a typical family of representatives of the "technical intelligentsia". She became the late and only child of eternally busy engineers who worked in "closed" institutes.

However, her childhood and adolescence cannot be called standard and boring. An ordinary schoolgirl was unusually active.

“She was engaged in social activities and even was a member of the district pioneer headquarters. In general, trips to the pioneer headquarters are one of the most vivid childhood memories: we always thought of something there, staged performances, made propaganda teams, traveled around the country ", - N. Kasperskaya

Her interests also included standard children's hobbies for collecting stamps, badges, coins, singing in the school choir and creative drawing lessons, writing poetry. There was also time for sports, including swimming, cross-country skiing, professional basketball in the youth sports school.

Thinking about future profession, faced with a choice between a dream and a parent's opinion.

“I even seriously thought about choosing the profession of a veterinarian, but in high school I faced completely insurmountable problems with chemistry. ... parents are "techies" ... naturally, they advised me to enter a technical university ", - N. Kasperskaya

So I graduated high school already within the walls of the MAI at the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics. Eventually higher education graduated from the Faculty of Applied Mathematics of the Moscow Institute of Electronic Engineering, having received a red diploma.

The first entrepreneurial experience, or "this is how the stars formed"

Further destiny the future top manager is closely related to Evgeny Kaspersky, whom she met in 1987 while on vacation in a KGB sanatorium.

A stormy romance with joint fun holidays, hiking, canoeing logically ended with a wedding, but had its sad consequences. Evgeny, a student of the technical faculty of the Higher School of the KGB, was assigned to Chita, where the young wife was ready to go as a Decembrist.

Thanks to the intervention of the mother-in-law, the Kaspersky family remained in Moscow, and Evgeny begins his career at the Ministry of Defense, where he gets acquainted with computer viruses.

Until 1994, the young wife was raising two sons. But he begins to think about finding a job.

“I started doing business solely because of my own weakness. After spending six years at home with children, I was sick and tired of sitting in four walls. It was impossible already. I deliberately ran away from home. From everyday difficulties ", - N. Kasperskaya

According to the businesswoman herself, one of the main traits of her character was laziness. Therefore, she took the path of least resistance - in 1994 she got a job at the Kami company, where her husband was working at that time. Kaspersky was categorically against such a decision, as if he felt what family cooperation could lead to. But she definitely decided to be with her husband.

At first, she traded in computer accessories, later in software. She managed to climb the career ladder and become the head of the sales department thanks to the promotion and registration of an antivirus product (AVP) developed by her husband.

“It wasn't easy. I didn’t understand computers, I had no idea what sales were, I didn’t have financial and managerial skills. Of course, mistakes could not be avoided, I, for example, tried to sell everything personally, which is wrong ... Now I remember that time with affection: people did not understand why to buy software, if it was possible to rewrite everything on a floppy disk from a neighbor ”, - N. Kasperskaya

How Kaspersky Lab was born

After a trip to Hannover and visiting the CeBIT exhibition, he invites her husband to start his own business. Not finding support, she herself opens the Data Rescue Center company in 1995. However, the business quickly went bankrupt.

Problems in the seemingly reliable, large and unsinkable company "Kama" forced Kaspersky to make a choice. And he agrees with his wife to become the first in his own business, refusing the offer of an English company, where, despite the fame of the name, he would be the second.

The business history of Evgeny Valentinovich Kaspersky is filled with bright moments and resembles the rapidly changing pictures of a kaleidoscope. But the spouse played a special role in it.

Natalia took the main and decisive step at the time of choosing the name of the company. Taught by her first unsuccessful entrepreneurial experience, she insisted on a sonorous name. Variants like "Casper and Co" evoked comic associations, while the name "Kaspersky Lab" immediately became recognizable in the computer world.

The team of start-up entrepreneurs consisted mainly of programmers who were absolutely not interested in administrative work. Therefore, the woman had to take the reins of government into her own hands.

I got my job through pull, through family ties, just by marrying a computer genius. Then I had to sweat, however, to turn the ingenious work into a business.

And she, as a businessman, succeeded. Sales growth in the early years was 300%. The staff expanded from 6 to 600 people, international contracts appeared, "Laboratory" gained worldwide recognition.

The manager clearly states the reasons for the startup's success:

• The company successfully found itself at the origins of a new market, where Kaspersky were the pioneers.
• The idea came about at the right time, when the growth in demand was just incredible.
• Competitors wandered blindly, which put all participants on an equal footing.

For companies, as in people's lives, a lot also depends on luck. From the arrangement of the stars, if you will. You can study some business methods for a long time, try to apply them, but if “the stars do not add up”, it is unlikely that everything will be easy, ”laughs N. Kasperskaya.

However, luck was not enough to manage a booming business. There was a catastrophic lack of knowledge, which pushed the woman to receive a second education at the British Open University.

Divorce - a collapse of hopes or a business partnership

The first crack in the relationship appeared immediately after the creation of a joint business. And the career growth of his wife and the radically different views on many things of the spouses played a key role in the rupture of Kaspersky, which occurred in 1997.

They officially filed for divorce in 1998, hiding the true situation from others for more than a year.

“Our divergence was quite a big blow, ... we risked losing everything, but somehow we managed to resist, to separate the personal from the public, so to speak, from the business, to separate it”, - N. Kasperskaya

Natalia continues to run the ex-spouse's business and in 2000 becomes the CEO of the company. It was with her that the turnover of the "Laboratory" grew at a cosmic pace.

An ideological split with Kaspersky led to Natalya's dismissal in 2007 from the position of CEO and to a complete separation in 2011 after the sale of her remaining shares.

Natalya Kasperskaya is one of the most successful women Russia, she took 2nd place in the list of 50 most influential business women in Russia according to the Finance magazine for 2009. She has a big business and four children. She managed to survive the divorce and become happy again. Natalia will be discussed in a new article in the rubric « « .

Natalya Kasperskaya is a very famous person, therefore, as is now accepted, the main thing read on Wikipedia: was born in Moscow in 1966. Parents are typical representatives of the "technical intelligentsia". The only child was born late by those standards: father was already 46 years old, mother - 30. Parents - engineers, worked in "closed" institutes, are always busy.

We all come from childhood

She studied at a simple Soviet school. She was an ordinary schoolgirl, though very "socially active": “She was engaged in social activities and even was a member of the district pioneer headquarters. In general, trips to the pioneer headquarters are one of the most vivid childhood memories: we always thought of something there - we staged performances, made propaganda teams, traveled around the country. "

In addition, she went in for sports, played basketball for a long time in the Youth Sports School. In the winter I went skiing in the Moscow region, and in the summer I was fond of swimming. She also collected stamps, badges and Soviet coins, painted portraits of her acquaintances and sang in the school choir. She wrote poems for all sorts of skits and school concerts.

But sometimes it was sad, there were not enough brothers or sisters ... Then I thought that I myself would have three children.

In an interview, Natalya Kasperskaya said that she dreamed of becoming a veterinarian: “I really enjoyed playing with animals. I even seriously thought about choosing such a profession, but when I moved to high school, I started having completely insurmountable problems with chemistry. And since my parents are "techies", then there was no particular alternative. Naturally, I was advised to enter a technical university ”.

The last two school years she studied at the Physics and Mathematics School at the Moscow Aviation Institute, then entered the Moscow Institute of Electronic Engineering (MIEM) at the Faculty of Applied Mathematics. Later it turned out that Natalya's vocation is still not a mathematician, she is more of a humanist in her nature. Although mathematics was given in exactly the same way as other subjects and problems were solved without problems, but I could not invent some kind of algorithm, prove a theorem, without memorizing it before.

Institute and family in one bottle

Natasha studied at the institute with varying degrees of success. Thanks to the school habit to study well, and in the first three years I studied diligently, as a rule, I earned a scholarship. Then habits began to change and the University was graduated in 1989 without a red diploma.

Prepared by: Anna