Kommersant (St. Petersburg), February 15, 2010

A FINANCIER BECAME THE HEAD OF DELTA TELECOM

General director of the company was changed Alexander Dudin became general director of Delta Telecom developing Skylink project in the Northwest. Management of Skylink announced this last Friday. Dudin stood at the cradle of the operator's establishment occupying various finance-related managerial positions. The top manager is tasked to increase the revenue and the client base of Delta Telecom. According to analysts, it will not be very easy to do this. Last Friday, management of Skylink introduced Alexei Dudin, new general director of Delta Telecom and director of business unit Northwest. Dudin will be curator of operations of Skylink on the territory of entire Northwest. The manager is tasked to increase revenue and client base. In any case, General Director of Skylink Gulnara Khasyanova does not say which goals Dudin has to achieve exactly. She only says that the operator plans to increase its share on the Russian market according to revenue from current 2% to 5% in two years. Alexei Dudin was born on January 14 of 1974 in Leningrad. In 1996 he graduated from the St. Petersburg university of economics and finance with specialty "Accounting and audit" and in 2002 he graduated from the St. Petersburg sate university of economics and finance under the program "Assessment of business value," between 2006 and 2007 he graduated from Stockholm School of Economics under the program "Strategic management." Between 1994 and 1998, he was economist of Bank St. Petersburg. Between 1998 and 2000, he was analyst of Telecominvest. Since 2000, he was financial manager of Web Plus. Between 2002 and 2007, he was deputy general director and financial director of Skylink-St. Petersburg (Delta Telecom). Since 2007, he was deputy general director of Skylink for economy and finance. In February of 2010, he was appointed director of business unit Northwest. According to Yury Bryukvin, general director of analytical agency Rustelecom, it will not be easy for Delta Telecom to improve its operating performance. Bryukvin explains, "Against the background of GSM operators that sell more starting kits in St. Petersburg in two months than the client base of entire Skylink in the Northwest it will not be easy for the operator to increase its market share both according to the quantity of subscribers and according to revenue. It is obvious that no super manager will help Skylink to compete against GSM companies in such connection race on equal terms." According to Alexei Kuznetsov recently appointed general director of business unit Skylink-Regions (formerly, he worked for Red Bull GMBH), the operator is going to stake at a new sales strategy" "non-traditional marketing" and revision of relations of the operator with the cellular dealers. Kuznetsov did not explain what he meant by "non-traditional marketing." Bryukvin says, "By and large, the company has not had and does not have a development strategy and statements about non-traditional marketing may scare off traditional subscribers."