Galaktionova is a skilled and experienced corporate executive. She moved up to her current status from the position of a marketing specialist, evolving as one of the country’s most prominent high-ranking managers with an impressive track record in sales and marketing, customer service and ecosystem development.
Inessa Galaktionova: Biography
Inessa Galaktionova · Inessa Vasilievna Galaktionova · Inessa Vasilyevna Galaktionova · Galaktionova Inessa · Galaktionova I.V. · Инесса Галактионова · Инесса Васильевна Галактионова · Галактионова Инесса · Галактионова Инесса Васильевна · Галактионова И.В. · Inessa Wasiliewna Galaktionowa · Inessa Galaktionowa · Galaktionowa Inessa · Inessa Wassiljewna Galaktionowa · إنيسا فاسيليفنا جالاكتيونوفا · イネッサ・ヴァシリエヴナ・ガラクティオノワ · 伊内莎·瓦西里芙娜·加拉克蒂奥诺娃
She was born in October 1974 in Vilnius, Lithuania’s capital. Inessa Vasilevna Galaktionova attended and graduated from secondary school in the same city, and after that went on to pursue higher education at the local university, the oldest and largest in the country.
Inessa Galaktionova has a university degree in economics. Along with majoring in economics she took additional courses in finance and management, and also participated in some specialized international competitive events.
Galaktionova Inessa’s career started off in 1996, when she joined Philips, an international electronics conglomerate, as a manager. Galaktionova Inessa Vasilevna continued to build her career in the company in marketing functions. In 2003, she was promoted to join the company’s senior executive team for Europe and post-Soviet countries. In 2008, Inessa Galaktionova, who had gained a considerable experience in running business projects by then, was appointed marketing director for one of the company’s regional subdivisions. In her new position she was in charge of the brand’s promotion, media communications, regional network of partnerships and development of marketing channels in the region’s core market and several neighbouring countries.
Inessa Galaktionova and a telecom provider
Inessa Galaktionova’s career has always been linked to large-scale holdings and she has accumulated an impressive track record of managing their evolution and development processes. In 2008, she left Philips to join a local GSM mobile service provider – Tele2 – which was owned by the eponymous Sweden-based telecoms holding then. Inessa Galaktionova joined the company in the capacity of commercial director in charge of marketing, sales, customer support and a number of other functions. Within the following four years Galaktionova Inessa successfully streamlined the operations, helping the company both to increase its revenues and expand subscriber base. Among her most notable achievements were the introduction of more effective promotion tools and methods, and customer service improvements.
Inessa Vasilevna Galaktionova was the driving force behind the company’s successful rebranding, marketing channels expansion and new online strategy development.
These initiatives helped to improve significantly the company’s financial and operating results. In 2012, the company’s revenue totalled 59.5 billion roubles, whereas its subscriber base reached 22.7 million users, posting a growth of over 100% vs 2008. The company’s performance was even more impressive in terms of earnings, as its EBITDA soared to hit 21.7 billion roubles from 8.9 billion roubles.
In spring 2013, the Sweden-based Tele2 AB disposed of its local subsidiary, selling it to a domestic banking conglomerate. Inessa Vasilevna Galaktionova by this moment had gained a reputation of an effective executive with systemic thinking and ability to generate innovative ideas. She had also accumulated a track record of building efficient marketing and sales systems for large-scale businesses.
Galaktionova Inessa: Modernization of postal service
She got another opportunity to apply her managerial skills and experience, when she was invited to join the country’s post service executive team as deputy director general. At that time, the organization found itself in a real predicament badly needing reorganization and restructuring. The postal service’s failure to cope with a huge mail flow collapse in the capital air hub acted as catalyst for its reform. The collapse was triggered by an abnormal cloggage at Sheremetevo Airport, where more than 500,000 tons of mail stuck in a customs control bottleneck. The airport just run out of space to pile the incoming mail and the air-freight operator had to suspend deliveries from abroad in breach of the Universal Postal Union’s rules. Eventually, emergency measures had to be taken. The postal service’s management team was fired and replaced them with more skilled and competent corporate executives. Galaktionova was among those who received the job offer.
Inessa Galaktionova
In 2013, a sweeping reform of the postal service was initiated. The organization’s newly appointed leadership, including Inessa Galaktionova, pursued a strategy to modernize the service and turn it into a self-sustainable business. Within this strategy, the so-called “grey mail” problem had to be dealt with, as losses stemming from it amounted to billions of roubles. Galaktionova Inessa also suggested that the organization should introduce franchising schemes to outsource some local post offices in remote areas to franchisees. This mechanism enabled the postal service to shut down some of the loss-making local offices in sparsely populated remote territories.
Galaktionova Inessa contributed a lot to the reform of the country’s postal service and her efforts brought tangible results. Since 2015, the organization stopped to receive funds to cover its losses. In 2016, another step was taken to boost its financial standing, when the postal service and VTB Group jointly set up Pochta Bank, a financial institution with branches opening across the chain of post offices.
As the postal service’s deputy chief executive, Galaktionova completed a number of key marketing projects, helping to boost the organization’s revenue and profitability. She was behind the introduction of direct mail services, enabling corporate clients to order targeted distribution of promotion materials using postal address databases compiled by the provider or by the client. The client got an option to channel direct mail in line with specific characteristics of the target audience. Inessa Galaktionova also initiated the launch of the organization’s proprietary market place – Pochta Market. The new platform, not unlike other similar marketplaces, including AliExpress and Ozon, offers a wide range of merchandise – from horticulture and gardening supplies through food and various home appliances.
Galaktionova Inessa Vasilevna also pushed for an expansion of the assortment of retail merchandise available offline, at brick-and-mortar post offices. Normally, post offices would host retail stalls with a limited assortment of consumer staples. In 2014, Galaktionova was among the initiators of a retail campaign headlined “Back to school”, designed to offer schoolchildren’s parents an opportunity to buy cheaper goods to equip their kids for school. The initiative was particularly welcomed in remote sparsely populated areas.
Inessa Galaktionova did a lot to help reorganize the country’s postal service into a joint-stock company. The transition began in 2018 and was completed in 2019, when the postal service was re-incorporated as a non-public joint-stock company.
Inessa Vasilevna Galaktionova: Ecosystem development
By 2019, Inessa Galaktionova’s career path had repeatedly led her to deal with specific IT issues and solutions; so, it was not totally unlooked-for when she was offered a senior executive position at one of the country’s leading high-tech corporations. The corporation was initially focusing on telecom services, but later on began to pursue a number of other IT-intensive lines of business. In her new function Galaktionova was able to continue to fulfil her potential in marketing and sales development, and in strategic planning. In the capacity of a high-ranking corporate executive she was exploring the most promising directions and strategies to make the corporation more competitive vs. other market players.
Inessa Galaktionova is now actively involved in ecosystem development. She believes that most up-to-date digital solutions can give a huge competitive edge for a company dealing with clients targeting a broad range of goods and services. Inessa Galaktionova thinks that the company has to enable a consumer to get whatever product he needs without resorting to offline sources. This factor was especially relevant during the COVID-19 lockdowns.
Galaktionova Inessa Vasilevna is confident that corporate ecosystems would be a good platform to offer financial services. Increasingly sizeable numbers of consumers have already linked payment functions to their smartphones. Galaktionova believes that a concise and reliable client ID system should enable an ecosystem to process payments without additional identification procedures, ensuring for the customer a seamless access to entertaining content, as well as various other goods and services within the ecosystem.
Along with mainstream ecosystem-provided services, Inessa Galaktionova highlights a number of other promising segments, including food delivery and EdTech. However, she points out that the company should evaluate its own potential and capacities in advance to understand whether it would be able to become one of the leading providers in a particular segment. It is very important that additional services should not become an artificial appendage to the company’s core activities, but rather provide reasonable synergies and generate additional income.
One of the IT holding’s landmark M&A deals – the acquisition of Webinar Group – can be used to exemplify the principles of efficient ecosystem development advocated by Inessa Galaktionova. Webinar Group is one of the country’s leading developers of software and platforms for online-events. Galaktionova believes that integration of Webinar-developed products into the IT holding’s ecosystem would enable the latter to create more efficient business solutions, as well as replace some of the popular international platforms with domestically developed equivalents.
