Business programme

In 2019, a new tool for tracking screen time was introduced to smartphone operating systems. Disheartened users were able to monitor the continuous growth of their screen additions, something the pandemic has only exacerbated. Today, the average resident of a developed country looks at their mobile device for over 4 hours a day, while overall screen time accounts for more than 8 hours. Our digital devices have become Trojan horses, allowing the captains of the digital economy to conquer our attention. Controlling how people spend their time is a key factor in the success of digital ecosystems. The algorithms used to do this, which analyse consumer preferences and select which content to display, are often misunderstood by regulators and consumers alike. Even now, governments often adopt the logic of the industrial economy, for example viewing market power exclusively as the share in the market for a given product. Competition today, however, revolves around strategies for controlling demand, namely the attention of consumers, rather than the dominance of different goods and services on the supply side. This transformation is defined by the concept of the ‘attention economy’. The entertainment industry is losing its status as an independent sector and is increasingly being incorporated into huge digital ecosystems. The wave of mergers and acquisitions covering all kinds of entertainment assets is driven in part by the desire of these ecosystems to strengthen their grip on consumer attention. Regulators are already faced with the question of whether it is now necessary to talk about the convergence of different markets into a single market for managing consumer attention. At the same time, several sectors in the new economy such as legacy media and the entertainment industry are already experiencing significant competitive pressure on the part of integrated digital giants, forcing regulators to grapple with the fresh challenge of ensuring fair competition in these new conditions. Should the government support the traditional entertainment industry or is it becoming an arbiter between the traditional industry and digital ecosystems? Should the algorithms used to control consumer attention be made transparent? Do we need a new set of rules to govern the provision of audiovisual services in the latest round of development of the market economy?

Moderator
Aleksey Ivanov, Director, HSE - Skolkovo Institute for Law and Development, International BRICS Competition Law and Policy Centre, National Research University Higher School of Economics

Aleksey Ivanov

Director, HSE - Skolkovo Institute for Law and Development, International BRICS Competition Law and Policy Centre, National Research University Higher School of Economics

Alexey Ivanov – Harvard University (LLM), Russian School of Private Law (Master of Private Law), Director of the HSE-Skolkovo Institute for Law and Development. Since 2012 Alexey has been teaching a course of lectures on Antitrust Regulation in the New Economy at the Higher School of Economics Faculty of Law. This course addresses the key challenges for development of competition law and policy over a backdrop of dramatic technological change. Alexey has long-standing professional experience in the court system, the public federal service, as well as in leading positions in large commercial energy and steel companies. For five years Alexey has served as Director of the Department for Legal Policy and Social Development at the Skolkovo Foundation, where he has been involved in research and legislative work aimed at the promotion of innovative activity in Russia. Aleksey is a director of the BRICS Antimonopoly Centre that specializes in reseach of pharmaceutical and digital markets of BRICS nations.

Panellists
Svetlana Balanova, Chief Executive Officer, National Media Group
Petr Ivanov, Deputy Head, Federal Antimonopoly Service
Alexander Krainov, Director of AI Technology Development, Yandex
Ioannis Lianos, President, Hellenic Competition Commission (online)
Bjorn Lundqvist, Co-Director, European Economic LLM programme, Stockholm University (online)
Sergey Piskarev, President, Association of Communications Agencies of Russia
Elena Rovenskaya, Program Director, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)
Ruslan Tagiev, General Director, Mediascope
Aleksandr Khinshtein, Chairman of the Committee of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation on Information Policy, Information Technology and Communications

Svetlana Balanova

Chief Executive Officer, National Media Group

Born on October 5, 1970 in Moscow, Russia.

In 1992, she graduated with honours from the Moscow State Linguistic University, named after Maurice Thorez.

From 1993 to 1999, she held various positions in sales, marketing and logistics at 3M Russia.

From 1999 to 2001, she served as the financial director of 3M Russia.

In 2000, she received an MBA from the Open University Business School, UK.

From 2001 to 2004, she was the director of 3M Russia’s Six Sigma projects (management of business processes) in Eastern Europe, North Africa and the Middle East.

From 2004 to 2008, she was the head of 3M’s Ukrainian office, and served as CEO of 3M Ukraine.

From 2008 to 2010, she was the CEO of 3M Russia.

From 2010 to 2011, she was the president of 3M’s “electronic monitoring” international business, and the COO of 3M Attenti (Israel).

From 2012 to 2020, she was the CEO of IBS.

As of 2019, she is a member of the supervisory board of the non-banking credit organization, National Settlement Depository.

That same year, 2019, she also completed studies at the Institute of Directors (UK) as part of the “IoD Chartered Director” programme.

She is a certified director (The Diploma in Company Direction from the British Institute of Directors), and a member of Russia’s Association of Professional Directors (AND).

Achievements and awards

From 2014 to 2019, she was regularly recognised among the best leaders in the IT industry and included in the annual Russia’s Top-1000 Managers ranking compiled by the Russian Managers Association (AMR) and Kommersant publishing house.

In 2012, 2013 and 2014 she was included in the ranking of Company magazine, “Top 50 Most Influential Women in Russian Business”.

In 2013 she won the “TIAW World of Difference 100 Awards”. The award was handed out by The International Alliance for Women (TIAW), which brings together more than 35,000 business women and organisations from six continents and is one of the largest international umbrella associations for women in business.

In 2009 she was a member of the board of directors of the American Chamber of Commerce in Russia.

In 2009 she was also included in the list of 500 managers who make up the administrative reserve under the patronage of the Russian President.

In 2007 she was included in the ranking “Best Top Managers of Ukraine” (the ranking was compiled by Companion magazine).

Proficient in English, German and Italian.

Petr Ivanov

Deputy Head, Federal Antimonopoly Service

Alexander Krainov

Director of AI Technology Development, Yandex

Head of the Machine Intelligence Laboratory, Yandex, in charge of Pilot Products and AI Technologies Sector.
Before that, for nine years, he headed the development of computer-enabled vision products and algorithms at Yandex.
Before Yandex, he worked at SPIRIT DSP and its subsidiary SeeStorm in the position of Product Director. He was engaged in the development of audio and video compression and transmission algorithms, speech recognition, video conferencing technologies, computer-enabled vision and 3D modelling.
He worked in Port.Ru, one of the Russian Internet pioneers, where he created a cataloguing system for Russia’s first online marketplace.
The first job was a temporary scientific team Supermatrix, where he was engaged in computer-aided design of the topology of superconducting matrices.
He graduated from MIREA (Russian Technological University).
Party to the development of a national strategy for AI development.
Member of the Executive Committee of the Moscow GO Federation.

Sergey Piskarev

President, Association of Communications Agencies of Russia

Elena Rovenskaya

Program Director, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)

Elena Rovenskaya is the Advancing Systems Analysis (ASA) Program Director at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Austria. She is also a research scholar at the Optimal Control Department of the Faculty of Computational Mathematics and Cybernetics, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia. Her scientific interests lie in the fields of optimization, decision science, and mathematical modeling of complex socio-environmental systems. Rovenskaya authored and co-authored more than 40 publications in reputable academic peer-reviewed journals including Nature Communications, Nature Plants, Scientific Reports, Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Sustainability, Ecological Economics, Journal of Industrial Ecology, Ecological Modelling, International Journal of Disaster Risk Science, and Journal of Risk Research.
Rovenskaya graduated in 2003 from the Faculty of Physics, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia. She received her PhD in 2006 at the Faculty of Computational Mathematics and Cybernetics, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia. In different capacities Rovenskaya has been working at IIASA since 2006. She was appointed a newly created ASA Program Director from January 2021. Currently, this Program includes 85+ scientists and aims to identify, develop, and deploy new systems-analytical methods, tools, and data to help address the most pressing global sustainability challenges with greater agility.

Ruslan Tagiev

General Director, Mediascope

Aleksandr Khinshtein

Chairman of the Committee of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation on Information Policy, Information Technology and Communications

Front row participants
Ettore Maria Lombardi, Professor of Private Law, University of Florence (School of Law), Florence, Italy
Velko Milutinovic, Director, Research Center "Balkan Dialogue"; Ex-commissioner, Competition Commission of Serbia