The strength of the Swedish economy is a byword throughout Europe, and, so any lessons learned from Swedish experts will be of the utmost value for developing economies.

On 14 October, ISET hosted representatives from the Stockholm School of Economics, with keynote speakers Dr. Anders Liljenberg (Dean of SSE Russia, Associate Professor at Stockholm School of Economics) and Anna Izmailova (Business Trainer, Head of Sales and Marketing at Stockholm School of Economics Russia) addressing assembled faculty and students. In the first part of their presentation, Dr. Liljenberg and Prof. Izmailova interchangeably introduced the Executive MBA program at the Stockholm School of Economics Russia. This economics school has already 2000 alumni all over Europe; indeed, Prof. Izmailova herself is a graduate of the EMBA program of 2010. In her talk, she stated that students' professors, classmates, and books are the three key factors that make their learning environment effective.

The students of the same program in Sweden were once asked why they chose to participate in the EMBA program, and Dr. Liljenberg revealed that the majority of students opted for the program in the hope of having a more financially secure life afterward. Dr. Liljenberg also mentioned that there are several places with scholarship opportunities (which constitute 75% of the total tuition fees) for students from Georgia, Armenia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Moldavia, and Belarus.

This was followed by a very interesting lecture about marketing, in which Dr. Liljenberg captured the attention of the audience by dropping references to different products – from mobile phones to cosmetics – that the audience was familiar with. He mentioned that the right approach to marketing should be predominantly consumer-based, which is is how Steve Jobs and Apple managed to dominate the technology industry and why companies like Ericsson and Nokia have fallen behind.

Dr. Liljenberg ended his speech by encouraging the audience of economists and businessmen not to stop educating themselves in marketing, and to strive towards innovative practices in the future.