Rosneft Oil Company used this year’s St Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) as a stage to spotlight its commitment to people‐centric growth, unveiling a three-way skills pact with St Petersburg State University (SPbU) and India’s Management Development Institute (MDI) in Gurgaon. The memorandum – signed by Igor Sechin, the CEO of Rosneft Oil Company, alongside SPbU Rector Nikolai Kropachev and MDI Director Professor Arvind Sakhai – lays out a multi-year roadmap for cultivating specialists who can marry advanced oil-and-gas know-how with twenty-first-century management acumen.

The deal builds on a relationship that Rosneft and SPbU began nurturing back in 2008. In the intervening years, the university’s Graduate School of Management has devised bespoke executive courses, modernized teaching facilities and channeled scholarship funds to top students and lecturers. More than 1,500 Rosneft employees have already passed through these programs – a clear illustration that steady investment in brainpower rewards both the company and its academic ally.