In the context of accelerating transformations, companies compete not only with products, but also with the quality of management decisions, corporate culture and approaches to human development. Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Candidate of Psychological Sciences, Business Consultant, Head of A-Line Consulting Agency, Associate Professor at Innopolis University and Member of the Academic Council of the Technological Entrepreneurship Program Alina Valencia tells why entrepreneurial thinking becomes a mandatory competence, which KPIs are applicable to human potential and how mentoring helps organizations build long-term sustainability. Artem Genkin, Doctor of Economics, Professor, Chairman of the Venture Financing Commission of the Financial Market and Investment Council of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation, spoke with the expert.
– Can you say that you are building your life as a project, and do you succeed in it?
– Since my childhood, my parents instilled in me a philosophical approach to completely different phenomena, so life for me is both a project and a path full of discoveries, extraordinary events and meetings, overcoming and living my experience, this is training, and a fairy tale, research and experiment. At the beginning of my professional career, I became very interested in project management, studied various approaches to this process, my consultant friends and I were actually the first to promote the concept of “life as a project” in the entrepreneurial environment, and later I organized a project office for a large customer from scratch, developed a methodology, and the concept “Projects that will change Russia” was a whole collection of socially oriented initiatives, most of them are still being implemented. The “life as a project” approach, in my opinion, disciplines and helps to focus, and focusing is one of the most important competencies of the near future. Any project has its beginning and its end, its team, dynamics, and goals. I do not limit the perception of life to the project approach only, but I treat it more as a path, as a process, so to your question, I am definitely ready to answer “yes”.
– Should all employees of the company, in your opinion, have entrepreneurial thinking? And how can a person develop it in himself?
– If you remember, some time ago my article was published in Invest-Foresight that in the future everyone will become entrepreneurs. This thesis is being confirmed over time. The main question is who the entrepreneur is. In my opinion, the reason for the disagreement lies in the fact that many confuse the concept of “entrepreneur” and “merchant.” So the entrepreneur always creates, takes responsibility, takes a proactive position, thinks strategically, is focused on both the product and the client, strives to develop the company’s brand, and most importantly, he is constantly improving himself. In no large corporation among managers can you find a single person without entrepreneurial thinking, on the other hand, there is a very active development of freelancing, where it is impossible to do without entrepreneurial skills. To develop entrepreneurial thinking, you definitely need to love your company, your product and the people who purchase this product; the rest is a matter of high-quality training and tireless business practice.
– You have found yourself in various multicultural environments many times in your life…. Can you name specific qualities, skills, features with which this or that environment has enriched you?
– I feel that I was very much shaped by the multicultural environment. For many years, in addition to Russia, Spain, Great Britain, Ireland, the Netherlands, Mexico entered the “zone of my habitat,” I constantly visited Italy and France. In addition, a large number of friends and business partners, and just communication with people (small talk) have formed many useful qualities in me. I am fluent in English and Spanish, know French, understand Portuguese and a little Italian. Love for languages, the ability to feel them, to think using them, of course, forms a completely different inner world. The multicultural environment has precisely shaped in me the feelings of the correctness of my choices, belonging to my country and culture. Despite my love for sunny Barcelona, lyrical London or exquisite Milan, my heart forever belongs to our beloved and beautiful Moscow, despite my knowledge of different languages, I write poems and my business sketches in Russian, I consider it incredibly deep and philosophical. On any trip, I always took with me small Russian souvenirs, chocolates and generously shared them not only with my friends, but also with completely different people, everyone received it very warmly everywhere, and I myself understood that any person can be an ambassador of his country.
And my main principle is: we live well where we are! There is such a concept in psychology that a person takes all problems with him wherever he moves, and in my travels and movements around the world I always try to take with me my excitement, my uniqueness, love and respect for people.
– You and I are both studying the process of making investment decisions from different sides. So what do you think is more important for a modern investor? Pure facts and figures – or associations and emotions?
– In general, the topic of the investor’s personality is a unique world, which is very interesting to study. For 10 years, I studied the identity of entrepreneurs and clearly saw that most of them are passionate innovators who want to change the world for the better through their ideas and businesses. And I have the same somewhat romanticized feeling from venture investors, fortunately, in recent years my work has been very closely connected with communication with very high-quality and experienced professionals in this area. It would seem that an investor is 100% in accurate and cold calculation, facts and figures… but, you talk to them “heart to heart” and find out that they came to the venture for a special atmosphere, community and “get-together” in order to feel young and help talented entrepreneurs promote cool products… but all this does not at all contradict making good money on this and multiplying “X,” this is the whole drive, and these people are definitely very driving!
– Cultivation, development of human capital – at what time interval do positive results become noticeable, when and what KPIs can be used to check the correctness of the chosen strategy of its development?
– In your question, the expression “human capital” sounds, and when we talk about a person as capital, we can definitely apply the concept of KPI, because we will measure capital – both in quantitative indicators – for example, the number of employees and the profit they create, and in qualitative ones – qualifications, retraining, the level of loyalty to the company, career growth, etc. The results of the development of human capital in contrast to the concept of attitude towards a person as a resource are visible quite quickly. Companies that build systematic work with human capital are very visible in the labor market, they have a recognizable and attractive employer brand. There is another category – human potential management. I really like that the voices of supporters of this approach are sounding louder. Simply put – when we select a person for the team, we evaluate him to a lesser extent for his past experience and current competencies, and to a greater extent – we try to predict how his potential can be revealed in the future. This is important for any strategically thinking leader, and there is a direct analogy with a venture – ideally, we buy a startup, and at the exit, we get a “unicorn.” But to unlock potential, it is important to create the right conditions – a positive atmosphere, a strong corporate culture, psychological support, mentoring, individual systems of career tracks and professional development… The main KPIs here are somewhat more ephemeral, although they are quite measurable in the hands of professional managers and true leaders. Companies that develop human potential invest a lot, but they also get a lot in return, and the more developed this approach, the faster changes for the better occur, although everything related to human relations, including in business, is a very subtle and fragile topic…
– You pay a lot of attention to mentoring in your work. Can you name five qualities of an ideal mentor?
– Yes, I have been dealing with the topic of expertise and mentoring for a very long time, interest in it has arisen since my graduate school at the Department of Acmeology. This science is engaged in the study of the psychology of professionalism, the achievement by a person of “acme” – the “blooming period” of his professionalism. As part of the acmeological approach, a specialist who has reached the level of expertise begins to share the accumulated experience with other people and becomes a mentor and. I myself am a mentor, I also work a lot with technological entrepreneurs at Innopolis University and as part of the creation of their career tracks, most of them set themselves the goal of moving to the level of mentoring, I am very pleased with this trend. The main question here is what kind of mentor you will become. Therefore, my 5 qualities of an ideal mentor will be as follows:
- systematical and analytical thinking,
- deep expertise, combined with tracking the most advanced trends in their field,
- strategic vision,
- flexibility of thinking and behavior,
- light and philosophical attitude towards life, their statuses, lack of pathos and excessive ambitions, respectful and friendly attitude towards their mentees.
I am sure that ideal mentors exist, at least all my mentors definitely have all the qualities listed by me, for me they are the best example.
– What in your life do you consider the most important luck?
– I am sure that the most important luck in the life of every person is to be born. If you think about it, this is such a physiologically complex process that each of us is really absolutely successful at the fact of our birth. And I was definitely lucky to be born into the most extraordinary family, about each of my relatives it would be possible to write a book or make a film, it was my family who laid the most useful qualities in me, my foundation of values, the inner core, they are for me the most impressive examples of vitality and love of life. My main miracle is the birth of my children, it’s generally amazing how two people appear at the same time! It is quite difficult to single out the main thing from the rest, since I think that I was incredibly lucky with my career and incredible love for my profession, real love, I would say, with incredible people whom I meet on my way, with a huge number of adventures, events, and travels!
– What additional education do you give your children, in addition to the general program, and what factors were taken into account when choosing?
– If we talk about early vocational guidance, then I was surprised to notice that the children of the alpha generation themselves are striving to decide on their future profession as early as possible. My twin boys are 6 years old, Oliver dreams of becoming an engineer, and Frederick is an entrepreneur and selling andron colliders. These are completely their personal ideas, very funny for all of us, older relatives, but even if this choice changes, I am sure that all game formats or the things that I strive to tell them in connection with the choice of profession will greatly help them in the future. In addition to the profession, I try to help them develop harmoniously, while avoiding “achievement” – we choose what they like, together we decide why and why it will be useful both now and in the future. My children are engaged in taekwondo and swimming, drawing and sculpture, they are fond of chess, and learn English and Spanish. Someone will say that this is too much, and my children are very active, they also want to go to singing! Over time, interests may change, but the main thing will always remain: the priority of choice is the unique personality of the child, his interests and aspirations.
– If you started now to write a book, what would it be about and what would it be called?
– What an urgent question! You know, I really plan to publish a book, and approached its writing through the creation of my “private” Telegram channel for clients, partners, colleagues and friends. There I write about entrepreneurship, including technological, about leadership, personality development and professionalism, about my happy business life. The approach is very authorial, there are only my personal impressions and reflections, I really love business philosophy and conceptuality. Therefore, small posts will become the foundations of different chapters, and the book already has a title – this is “Development as a taste of life.”
– You are engaged in advising managers and business owners… Do you have any code of ethics of your own, similar to the Hippocratic Oath of health workers? What are the main imperatives in it?
– I have been consulting all my professional life, I started at the age of 19, so I am very proud that I actually participated in the formation of modern Russian consulting, and of course, over the years I have developed my own principles, my own “handwriting.” Even at the very start of my career, I came up with three values that are still relevant: “Consulting as art,” “Client as a unique world,” “Development as a taste of life.” This is the basis of all my activities. My main principles are the focus on building long-term relationships, the feeling of “we” (working with any company and client, I become part of the team, but at the same time my main function is to be able to look at all processes from the outside), and hyperconfidence. Well, due to the specifics of my education, I always use a holistic approach, mixing business tools, coaching, and a psychological approach. And one more point that is definitely important for other entrepreneurs, who want to build a long-term relationship with the client – as well as personally, So in professional, long communicating with the company or with a person, we need to combine two fairly opposite things – to be the guarantor of stability and at the same time continue to surprise and delight, first of all, raising your professional bar, going beyond new horizons, demonstrating with your example that the impossible is possible!
– What are your plans for the New Year? And what do you want to wish our readers in the upcoming 2026?
– The most important plan for the New Year holidays is to create a festive mood and have time to enjoy it! It is easy with my boys, we are very active in learning the world, and they love winter very much and always look forward to it. In the coming New Year 2026, I wish the readers of Invest-Foresight joy in the little things, and in great achievements, energy and drive, and, of course, the taste of life! And my wishes to your magazine itself – the best experts, inquisitive readers around the world and new heights!