Natalya Ivanovna kasperskaya biography. The most influential woman in IT business: the success story of Natalia Kasperskaya. Natalya Kasperskaya - a happy mother and wife

Natalya Ivanovna Kasperskaya(February 5, 1966, Moscow) - CEO of InfoWatch, co-founder of Kaspersky Lab. From October 2006 (until 2012), she and her ex-husband Evgeny Kaspersky owned 60 percent of the company.

Biography

Born in Moscow on February 5, 1966. Graduated from the Moscow Institute of Electronic Engineering with a degree in Applied Mathematics in 1989. Received a bachelor's degree from the Open University in the UK.

In 1994, she came to work at the STC "KAMI" as a seller of software products, after some time she headed the anti-virus project "AVP", with the development of which the history of "Kaspersky Lab" began. AVP's sales volume at the time was $200 a month.

In 1997, she became a co-founder of Kaspersky Lab. Was the head of the company for about 15 years. During this time, Kaspersky Lab has become one of the leaders in the international market for computer security systems with a large cash flow.

In 2004, on the basis of Kaspersky Lab, Natalya founded a new company that develops tools for protecting corporate confidential information from internal threats (DLP systems). Solutions developed by InfoWatch are distributed both in Russia and abroad.

In the summer of 2007, Natalya Ivanovna was elected to the post of Chairman of the Board of Directors of Kaspersky Lab.

Since 2007, she has been CEO InfoWatch company.

In April 2008, she was elected a member of the board of the Russian-German Chamber of Commerce.

In 2010, she took 2nd place in the "Information Technology" nomination of the rating of top managers according to the Kommersant newspaper.

In July 2011, she resigned from the board of directors of Kaspersky Lab. In 2013, information appeared in the media that Natalya Kasperskaya became a co-owner of the German anti-virus company G Data and will distribute the products of this vendor in Russia. However, later in an interview with Continent Siberia, she noted that the parties failed to reach a compromise.

In 2013, Natalya Kasperskaya invested in the Russian startup Taiga, which was part of the InfoWatch Group of Companies. Taiga designs innovation system protect mobile devices from tracking and information theft.

Natalya Kasperskaya is a laureate of numerous prestigious international awards in the field of information technology:

· Laureate of the prestigious international award "Russian Business Leader of the Year" for merits in the development of the Russian IT industry according to Horasis, the Global visions community.

· Nominated by the British edition of BRIC Magazine for the title of the most influential person in Russia in the first quarter of 2015 for his contribution to the development of the IT industry.

Family

In 1998 she divorced, the second husband is businessman Igor Ashmanov. Mother of five children: from the first marriage - Maxim (b. 1989) and Ivan (b. 1991), from the second - Alexandra (b. 2005), Maria (b. 2009) and Varvara (b. 2012).

Natalia Kasperskaya - photo

FULL NAME: Kasperskaya Natalya Ivanovna
Date of Birth: February 5, 1966, Moscow
Position held: Russian entrepreneur in the field of information technology, CEO of the InfoWatch group of companies, co-founder of Kaspersky Lab

"Biography"

Natalya Kasperskaya (nee Shtutser) was born in Moscow on February 5, 1966 in a family of engineers, employees of "closed" defense research institutes. She was elected a member of the council of the pioneer team of the school, later - a member of the regional pioneer headquarters. In the Komsomol years - the Komsomol. In parallel with her main studies, she was involved in basketball for five years at a children's and youth sports school (DYuSSh). She seriously intended to become a veterinarian, but abandoned this dream due to problems with the study of chemistry. In the eighth grade, she was transferred by her parents from an ordinary general education school to a school with a physical and mathematical bias at the Moscow aviation institute(MAI). Upon graduation, she passed the entrance exams to the Moscow State University(Moscow State University) named after M.V. Lomonosov, but did not enter, missing half a point in the competition. Later, with the same grades, she entered the Moscow Institute of Electronic Engineering (MIEM).

Education

From 1984 to 1989 she was a student at the Faculty of Applied Mathematics at MIEM. Her theme thesis- "Mathematical model of the nuclear reactor cooling system". In addition, he holds a bachelor's degree in business from the Open University in the UK.

Career

According to the distribution after the institute, Natalya Kasperskaya worked for six months researcher at the Central Scientific Design Bureau (TsNKB) in Moscow and went on maternity leave to give birth to her second child. Natalya began building her career in the field of information technology only at the age of 28, having settled down in January 1994 on a part-time basis with a salary of $ 50 a month as a seller of accessories and software in just open shop Scientific and Technical Center (NTC) KAMI - a company created by a former teacher of his then-husband Eugene Kaspersky from high school KGB of the USSR.

Kaspersky Lab.

Since September 1994, Natalia has headed the antivirus distribution department. AntiViral Toolkit Pro(AVP), on which Evgeny Kaspersky's development team has been working since 1991. In two or three years, she managed to establish the main distribution channels for the product, technical support to enter foreign markets. The department's initial sales ($100–200 per month in 1994) began to grow rapidly. A year later, their volume exceeded $130 thousand, in 1996 it amounted to more than $600 thousand, a year later - more than $1 million. Income was divided between the team and the parent structure in half. By 1997, the future founders Kaspersky Lab.("Kaspersky Lab"), it became clear that it was necessary to stand out as a separate business.

Natalya Kasperskaya in June 1997 initiated the emergence Kaspersky Lab., insisted on such a name and worked as the CEO of this company for more than 10 years. The initial distribution of shares in Kaspersky Lab was as follows: 50% belonged to Evgeny, another 20% each belonged to two of his fellow programmers Alexei De-Monderik and Vadim Bogdanov, Natalya's share was 10%. Since 1997, Laboratoria's sales have doubled annually. In 2001, the company's turnover amounted to about $7 million, in 2006 - over $67 million.

In August 2007, due to an earlier divorce and a deepening ideological split with Evgeny Kaspersky, Natalya was removed from her post and removed from the main managerial functions, remaining the chairman of the created board of directors of Kaspersky Lab. Her final parting with the once common business occurred in 2011. In 2007-2011, "Laboratory" fully bought out Natalya's share in this company (by 2007, it was about 30%).

Led by Natalia Kasperskaya Kaspersky Lab. has become one of the largest anti-virus corporations with a network of regional offices around the world. At the time of the change of leadership, in 2007, the revenue of the "Laboratory" was $ 126 million. Its capitalization in 2011, when Natalya left the co-owners and left the company, was estimated at more than $ 1.3 billion, and annual revenue - at $ 700 million. After the change of leadership, the growth rate of the latter decreased markedly: in 2009, global revenue Kaspersky Lab. increased by 40%, in 2011 - by 13.7%, in 2012 - by 3%, in 2013 - by 6%.

InfoWatch

After the purchase by Kaspersky Lab of the Antispam technology developed by Ashmanov and Partners, the head of this company, Igor Ashmanov, gave the buyers an idea: he suggested using the antispam engine in the opposite direction - to protect against leaks. In 2001-2002, Kaspersky Lab specialists developed a system that later became known under the brand InfoWatch Traffic Monitor Enterprise, - protection of corporate users from internal threats (DLP-system). In December 2003, a subsidiary was founded to develop and distribute the new product InfoWatch. Since October 2007, Natalya Kasperskaya has been the CEO and majority shareholder InfoWatch. This company was part of her share in the division of business with ex-husband. Natalya Kasperskaya directed her main investments to InfoWatch, in the Kribrum and Nanosemantics joint companies with Igor Ashmanov, as well as in the German anti-virus company G Data Software AG. For the rapidly growing Kaspersky Lab, a by-product InfoWatch with unclear (at the time of allocation) prospects was a burden. Technological solutions and product line of the new company, unlike "Laboratory", are initially focused on large and medium-sized corporations (from 300 workstations), and not on small business and retail. This required fundamentally different skills and approaches, where Natalya's previous managerial experience was not very applicable. However, already in 2012, the previously unprofitable company InfoWatch for the first time went into the "plus" and continued to grow rapidly, by 60-70% per year. According to Forbes, revenue InfoWatch in 2014 amounted to 831 million, independent experts interviewed by Kommersant in the spring of 2015 estimated this business at $40–50 million. InfoWatch has become a group of companies from several subsidiaries grouped in two directions - protecting corporations from internal threats and from targeted attacks from outside. It occupies about 50% of the Russian market of confidential data protection systems (DLP-systems). Among long-term clients are Russian government agencies, as well as Sberbank, Beeline, Lukoil, Tatneft, Surgutneftegaz, Sukhoi, Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works (MMK), etc., the company is actively promoting its business in Germany , in the Middle East, in the countries of South and South-East Asia. Current Shareholders InfoWatch- Natalia Kasperskaya and Deputy General Director of the enterprise Rustem Khairetdinov.

personal fortune

The first to evaluate the personal fortune of Natalya Kasperskaya was the Finance magazine in 2010 - then, according to the editorial staff of this business publication closed in July 2011, it amounted to $ 450 million. The publication caused a public controversy: on the radio station Finam FM, Kaspersky denied the data , describing them as highly overestimated, and questioned the adequacy of the calculation method. However, on next year"Finance" has revised its estimate, increasing to $462 million.

According to business magazine Forbes, in March 2013, the state of Kaspersky was $ 220 million. In 2014, he also estimated it at $ 230 million, and in 2015 - at $ 270 million. ". In July 2015 the German magazine Der Spiegel published the result of his calculations - € 207 million. In August of the same year, the version of the women's magazine became known Cosmopolitan- $270 million

According to Spiegel, most of Natalya Kasperskaya's personal fortune is the proceeds from the sale of assets. In October 2015, Kaspersky herself, in response to the question whether the results of Forbes calculations correspond to reality, indicated that the company she owns is non-public, with a priori unknown capitalization, but “if InfoWatch evaluate well, then normally counted.

views

About entrepreneurship Natalya Kasperskaya calls the paradox of entrepreneurship a situation in which investments are most difficult to attract at the very beginning of a business, when they are urgently needed. The more successfully the business develops, the more favorable investors become. Over time, they begin to run after the owners of such a business, but at this stage their money is no longer required - after all, in exchange, a potential investor will want a share in an established profitable business. With start-ups, the conversation is different: since the prospects are unclear, in exchange for funding, investors will demand control from their owners and begin to dictate what and how to do, which can ruin the business. Therefore, if a startup has a choice, Natalya believes, it is better for him not to attract external investments at all. She is sure:
You can get money on good terms only if you prove that you do not need the money. The more money you need, the worse the conditions will be. Kaspersky, however, explains that for a pragmatic investor, when buying a startup, it is more logical to leave the team of its creators at the helm than to take additional risks by attracting third-party management at their discretion. And for this, the creators need a powerful incentive, the best of which is a share in their own company. Natalya Kasperskaya recalls that having bought out 100% of one of the startups at the stage of the conflict of shareholders, she later gave two of its top managers a package of shares back so that they continued to grow their business.
Natalya Kasperskaya considers three main features of an entrepreneur: the ability to sacrifice something, to try new things only out of curiosity and at the same time have a penchant for making money - the latter distinguishes an entrepreneur from a stuntman. When investing, she advises paying attention not to current market trends with exponential growth, but to areas in which you are well versed. Without this, it is impossible to take into account the hidden circumstances that are discovered only from within a particular market and for which skills are needed. It takes 5-6 years of work to master these skills in any industry, therefore, according to Kaspersky, it is more profitable to stay in “your” depressive industry, rather than rush about, even during a recession. At the same time, however, you can miss the moment when the industry dies off for good. Natalya Kasperskaya assesses the role of the CEO as deliberately lonely: he has no one to consult with. Business partners do not always understand the specifics or may have their own interest, and the status does not allow discussing the strategy with subordinates. However, the Internet removes unnecessary barriers if you take the time to communicate with subordinates. As Natalya notes, not everyone dares to come to the head with their proposals in person, but it is much easier to do this on the Web, so there is more trust in the end.
This, according to Kaspersky, has a downside. If in the mid-2000s the personnel service was alarmed by the fact that the interviewee had his own blog or account in social networks, by the mid-2010s it would rather be alerted by the statement of the job seeker that he had nothing of the kind. As Natalia notes, companies have begun to strive for comprehensive control over the actions of their personnel. About Internet Security Kaspersky believes that even though “black lists” and blocking of prohibited sites are half-measures that need to be improved, nothing better has yet been invented. However, Internet content filtering should, in her opinion, be applied only fourth after prevention - systemic explanatory work with parents, teaching children with disabilities. preschool age understanding of the main Internet threats, as well as legislative activity and punishment of violators. At the Internet 2015 forum held in Moscow in December 2015, Natalya Kasperskaya outlined key proposals for tightening Internet regulation to the President of Russia, who, on the other hand, noted that he shared this approach. According to Natalia, the use of personal data by any organization needs to be introduced into the legal field and streamlined. This has not yet been done, despite the explosive growth of opportunities for collecting such data about citizens on the Internet, especially in social networks, for various manipulations. Kaspersky is surprised that the use of big data is being lobbied in Internet marketing, but few people consider this topic from a security point of view. Meanwhile, collecting big data about users of various electronic devices and services is surveillance. In addition to automatically collecting, storing and analyzing arrays of data on the activity of citizens, their movements, preferences, relationships with each other, purchases, negotiations, public and non-public records, photos and videos, etc., there are also ways to extract from total mass individual dossier, Natalya Kasperskaya points out. If the selected object is, for example, an official admitted to state secrets, there is a threat national security, since all of the listed data is at the disposal of American manufacturing companies and, as a result, the United States. But that's not the only risk, Kaspersky warns. Dominating the global computer technology market, the United States is able to impose an embargo on the use of any of its devices and software products - for example, it is technically possible to remotely turn off Windows in Russia on all computers at once, turn off all smartphones at once, stop technical support for any corporate systems, making it inaccessible updating and blocking them. Natalya recalls that there have already been similar cases - for example, when the embedded computer worm Stuxnet disabled Iran's nuclear industry.
According to Natalya Kasperskaya, malware can be located right in the processor. In a similar way, a foreign manufacturer is able to organize infrastructural sabotage, targeted attacks, including those of a propaganda nature, which are weapons in information war in which Russia is located. As long as the US remains a de facto monopoly in global sales of leading software and hardware, the rest of the world (and, in particular, Russia) will have to put up with the listed risks, which, according to Kaspersky, are becoming unacceptable. About IT import substitution Natalya Kasperskaya believes that Russia needs to develop a national technology strategy and IT platform, its own independent chain of full-cycle solutions in the field of information technology, from the processor to the software. It is necessary to prioritize and understand what to replace in the first place, what in the second, to define the very concept of cybersecurity. She states that in the field of software (software), Russia's positions are already quite strong today - there is a large number of products that can replace foreign ones. The volume of IT exports from Russia in 2015, according to the Ministry of Communications, amounted to $ 7 billion (for comparison: export Russian weapons for the same year - about $15 billion). Order 70 Russian companies work in the field of information security, that's enough. The main thing that the industry is sorely lacking, according to Natalya, is not subsidizing developers, but stimulating demand. The most obvious way to create it is to oblige state-owned companies or companies with state participation to buy domestic. Kaspersky is aware that, for example, it is unrealistic to replace Windows on mass computers in the coming years. However, if we consider specific areas - for example, a school tablet - this becomes possible. Already now there are both potential Russian developers of the corresponding software (for example, based on Linux systems) with support for most applications instead of Android from Google, and Chinese counterparts of adequate quality in terms of hardware. If there is a state order, additional funding will not be required here, Natalya believes. Ideas to limit IT import substitution only to software Natalya Kaperskaya does not share: the same mobile devices are, in fact, an inseparable symbiosis of hard & soft. In the field of hardware, Russia is still lagging behind (there is no element base, its own processor, the main functional units), but all this, except for the processor itself, has already been developed in China - and with software, according to Natalia Kasperskaya, it’s just worse there than in Russia. Synergy between the two powers would ensure digital sovereignty for both. The processor will have to make your own and share it with the Chinese. About Russia Since the pioneer years, Kaspersky believed that it was necessary to protect her native country, she was initially patriotic and now she is sure that she will remain so in the future. In 1991, Natalya, like those around her, wanted to change society in the days August coup she herself went to the barricades, but now she is ashamed of this episode of her life: she realized that she was on the wrong side.
Kaspersky sees the 1990s in Russia as a window of opportunity, when “everything was easier,” including starting your own business. At the same time, the sharpness of the then changes, the general instability of the country and the dangers caused by this, up to the murders of entrepreneurs, led to the fact that people feared for the future and left Russia. For itself, Kaspersky emigration excludes: “Drop everything and run, hide in the bushes - where, in which country?”. She feels her roots in Russia - her parents and relatives, friends, business. Nevertheless, from the point of view of entrepreneurship, it is uncomfortable for Natalya Kasperskaya to close herself only in her own country. By organizing significant part business abroad, she compares Russia to a small pond, while the rest of the world is to the sea. Nevertheless, as of the mid-2010s, Kaspersky estimates the volume of the Russian market for corporate information leakage prevention systems (DLP systems) at $80 million, which is about a tenth of the global one. “Russia in this sense is a completely advanced power. In the field of DLP, we are absolutely ahead of the rest,” Natalya believes. For example, in terms of the severity of competition: if in the US the market is divided by only five DLP-suppliers, in Russia there are already seven of them.

Private life

Hobbies
Natalya Kasperskaya liked social activity from school. She recalls how she sang in a children's choir, took part in school performances, concerts and pioneer propaganda teams, drew wall newspapers and composed poems for them. In addition, she went in for sports - basketball, skiing, swimming, and also collected postage stamps, badges and Soviet coins.
AT student years Natalia got carried away theater life Moscow, she knew the repertoires of the main youth theaters of that time: the name of the Moscow City Council, on Taganka, Sovremennik - and sometimes spent the night in lines for tickets to fashionable performances. In addition, the KSP movement influenced her, she herself often sang with the guitar in companies. Later came hobbies trampoline, skiing, traveling in the company of friends and children, reading professional literature. Natalya Kasperskaya calls Good to Great and Built to Last by American business consultant Jim Collins her favorite books that have influenced her worldview. She is fluent in English and German.
Kaspersky admits that she does not know how and does not like to cook, although she was forced to do this on maternity leave. She does not understand clothing brands, does not remember them and does not spend time shopping, including online shopping, but simply buys what she likes and fits well. Natalia has no reverence for brands, because she understands how these brands line up. Similarly, it applies negatively to gadgets and social networks, because he understands that these are ways of spying on a person. But forced to use the gift Sony Xperia, and provides her presence in social networks through a PR service, she herself rarely goes there.

Family

Natalya met her first husband, Evgeny Kaspersky, in a rest home in January 1987, when she was 20 years old. Six months later, they got married. In 1989, while in her fifth year at the institute, Natalya Kasperskaya gave birth to her first child, Maxim, and in 1991, her second son, Ivan. The couple separated in 1997 and divorced in 1998 at the initiative of Eugene, but due to the overall rapidly growing business, they had to hide the fact of divorce for a couple more years so as not to demotivate employees and the market. Igor Ashmanov, the future second husband, was introduced to Natalya in 1996 at the CeBIT IT exhibition in Hannover: the stands of their companies were next door. A year later, meeting again at the same exhibition, they resumed their initial acquaintance with a hat, starting to actively communicate on professional topics. As Kasperskaya recalls, two or three years later, after her divorce from Evgeny, they began dating, and in 2001 they got married. In 2005, Igor and Natalya had a daughter, Alexander, in 2009 - Maria, in 2012 - Varvara. The sons of Kaspersky graduated from Lomonosov Moscow State University (MGU): Maxim - Faculty of Geography, Ivan - Faculty of Computational Mathematics and Cybernetics. Ex-husband - Kaspersky Evgeny Valentinovich - Russian programmer, one of the world's leading experts in the field of information security. One of the founders, main owner and current head of AO Kaspersky Lab, an international IT security solutions company with more than 30 regional offices and leading sales in 200 countries. Laureate of the State Prize in the field of science and technology for 2008. In the press it is characterized as a "thunderstorm of computer crime"

"The driving force" of Russia according to the Financial Times

- (Blogger), - (Representative of Russia to NATO), Vladislav Surkov- (Acting head of the presidential administration of Russia), Anton Nosik- (Journalist / blogger), Oleg Kashin- (Journalist), Evgenia Chirikova- (Leader of the movement "In Defense of the Khimki Forest"), Tatyana Lokshina- (Human rights activist), - ( socialite), Valeria Guy- (Film director), Alexey Popogrebsky- (Film director), Vasily Barkhatov- (Theater director), Marat Gelman- (gallery owner), Arkady Volozh- (general director of "Yandex"), Sergey Belousov- (CEO of Parallels), Yuri Solovyov- (Deputy Chairman of the Board of VTB Bank), Eugene and Natalya Kaspersky- (co-owner of Kaspersky Lab),

"Companies"

InfoWatch, Kaspersky Lab

Kasperskaya Natalya Ivanovna is mentioned in the press:

Kaspersky: In the Russian Federation it is impossible to speak about cybersecurity

The founder of Kaspersky Lab told what problems Russia has in the field of information security.

Natalya Kasperskaya will open a monitoring center for information attacks in Innopolis

Company CEO InfoWatch Natalia Kaspersky announced the opening federal center monitoring information attacks. It is expected that the organization will begin its activities in the next six months in Innopolis.

Elena Baturina retained her first place in the ranking of the richest women in Russia

The top ten also included the founder of the Wildberries online store Tatyana Bakalchuk ($500 million, third place), member of the board of directors of the Progress Capital investment company Olga Belyavtseva ($400 million, fourth position), and the owner of the Sodruzhestvo group of companies Natalia Lutsenko (325 million, fifth line), board member charitable foundation Andrey Guryev Evgenia Guryev ($260 million, seventh), tennis player Maria Sharapova ($260 million, eighth), InfoWatch CEO Natalia Kasperskaya ($190 million, ninth), main owner of Sibir and Globus airlines Natalia Fileva ($190 million, 10th)

Natalya Kasperskaya spoke about the system for intercepting conversations in the office

InfoWatch CEO Natalya Kasperskaya spoke about the principles of the system for intercepting telephone conversations in the office, Kommersant FM reports.
“What we are doing looks like this: these are some virtual cells that are placed inside, it intercepts calls coming through this virtual cell on the white list. This means that the list is predetermined by the employer. And only those phones that are included in this list will be analyzed accordingly,” she said.

Three IT-entrepreneurs entered the rating of the richest women in Russia

Natalya Kasperskaya: "Spring Law"? If there is, then everyone must comply with it.

Changes in legislation in live Pravda.Ru was commented by Natalya Kasperskaya, President of the InfoWatch group of companies, co-founder of Kaspersky Lab.

The company of Natalia Kaspersky bought the German manufacturer of anti-virus software cynapspro

InfoWatch Natalia Kaspersky bought a controlling stake in a German anti-virus developer software cynapspro. Now the companies intend to start expanding into European markets. In the near future, InfoWatch and cynapspro will create a new joint brand for services aimed at small and medium businesses.

Natalya Kasperskaya thanked the MUR and the FSB for saving her son

MOSCOW, April 25 RIA Novosti. Natalya Kasperskaya, the mother of Ivan Kaspersky, who was released from the hostages the day before, thanked the participants in the operation to free her son on her Facebook profile. “Murovtsy need to erect a monument! also helped a lot. Thank you to everyone who supported us during this difficult time!” she wrote.

Natalya Kasperskaya: “We did not spare money for the ransom of our son”

The kidnappers turned out to be an unemployed Saveliev family from Moscow and two friends of their son. The young man was kept for five days in a cold bath without windows, handcuffed. Due to the constant darkness, Ivan thought that he spent only two days in captivity, and not five, as it really was.

Natalya Kasperskaya: “We will still do a private placement as the first step towards an IPO”

Interview. One of the most successful Russian business women, who managed Kaspersky Lab until 2007, is now working on her own project. But the former employer does not leave without attention.

It is specified that Kaspersky withdrew from the board of directors as a result of the re-election of its members. In addition to Evgeny Kaspersky, the council still includes three representatives of the company: Buyakin, Steven Orenberg and Alexei de Monderik, as well as John Bernstein from the General Atlantic investment fund. It was this company that acquired shares from Natalia Kasperskaya in January.

Natalia Kasperskaya: women are better where there is communication

The proportion of women among chief accountants - 93%, HR directors - 70% and financial directors 48%, the paper says. However, in positions such as CEO, chairman of the board of directors and president, there are still very few women, company experts say. On the difficulties of doing business for women in Russia, BBC Russian Service correspondent Mikhail Ternovykh spoke with one of the most successful Russian business women, one of the founders of Kaspersky Lab, Natalia Kasperskaya.

Natalya Kasperskaya gave birth to her fourth child

Natalia Kasperskaya, one of the most famous and respected IT ladies on the Russian market, CEO of Infowatch and wife of Igor Ashmanov, has given birth to her fourth child. The girl was named Mary.

Natalya Kasperskaya: "An entrepreneur is a person with a high level of aggression"

Natalya Kasperskaya heads the board of directors of Kaspersky Lab, manages Nanosemantics and InfoWatch companies, and works as an investor with the Navystavka.ru startup. Working in the IT business for more than 10 years, she realized that the main thing is to establish contact between salespeople and programmers. “If the situation gets out of control, I always side with the programmers. The main work rests on them, they create the product,” she said at a meeting organized by the Club of Successful Businessmen

Natalya Kasperskaya: "InfoWatch technology is not exactly surveillance"

On the last week It became known that the chairman of the board of directors of Kaspersky Lab, Natalya Kaspersky, headed InfoWatch, a subsidiary of LK, which produces software to protect against internal threats. At the same time, Kaspersky redeems 50% plus one share of InfoWatch, and a decision was made to issue an additional issue of the company's shares in order to attract new investments. Former CEO of Infowatch, Evgeny Preobrazhensky, was fired, along with several other employees of the LK.

Business lady Natalia Kasperskaya.

Perhaps Evgeny Kaspersky would have remained a talented, but little-known programmer, if not for his ex-wife Natalia. It was she who established the successful sale of her husband's IT developments. And if the business began to flourish, then the Kaspersky family broke up. But Natalya and Evgeny managed to maintain their relationship and are still co-owners of Kaspersky Lab.

Natalia Kasperskaya photography

Graduated from the Moscow Institute of Electronic Engineering (MIEM) with a degree in Applied Mathematics. He holds a bachelor's degree in business from the Open University in the UK.

In 1994, she came to work at the KAMI Research and Development Center as a software vendor, after some time she headed the AVP anti-virus project, with the development of which the history of Kaspersky Lab began. AVP's sales volume at the time was $200 a month.

In 1997, she became a co-founder of Kaspersky Lab. He has been the head of the company for more than 10 years. During this time, Kaspersky Lab has become the leader in the international computer security systems market with a turnover of several hundred million dollars.

In 2004, on the basis of Kaspersky Lab, she created a new company that develops tools for protecting corporate confidential information from internal threats (DLP systems). Solutions developed by InfoWatch are in demand in Russia and abroad.

In the summer of 2007, she was elected Chairman of the Board of Directors of Kaspersky Lab.

Since 2007, she has been the CEO of InfoWatch. Currently, InfoWatch is the market leader in DLP systems in Russia and is actively expanding into the European, Asian and American markets.

In April 2008, she was elected a member of the board of the Russian-German Chamber of Commerce.

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Natalya Kasperskaya is one of the most successful women in Russia, she took 2nd place in the list of the 50 most influential business women Russia according to the magazine "Finance" for 2009. She has big business and four children. She managed to survive the divorce and become happy again. About Natalia and will be discussed in a new article heading « « .

Natalya Kasperskaya is a very famous person, therefore, as is now customary, the main thing is read on wikipedia: Born in Moscow in 1966. Parents are typical representatives of the "technical intelligentsia". The only child was born by those standards late: the father was already 46 years old, the mother - 30. Parents are engineers, worked in "closed" institutes, always busy.

We all come from childhood

She studied at a simple Soviet school. She was an ordinary schoolgirl, though very "socially active": “I was engaged in social activities and was even a member of the regional pioneer headquarters. In general, trips to the pioneer headquarters are one of the most vivid childhood memories: we were always inventing something there - we staged performances, made propaganda teams, traveled around the country.

In addition, I was involved in sports, enough long time I played basketball at the Youth Sports School. In winter, she went skiing in the Moscow region, and in summer she was fond of swimming. She also collected stamps, badges and Soviet coins, painted portraits of her friends and sang in the school choir. She composed poems for all sorts of skits and school concerts.

But sometimes it was sad, there were not enough brothers or sisters ... Then I thought that I myself would have three children.

In an interview, Natalya Kasperskaya said that she dreamed of becoming a veterinarian: “I really enjoyed working with animals. I even seriously thought about choosing such a profession, but when I moved to high school, I started having completely insurmountable problems with chemistry. And since my parents are “techies”, there was no special alternative. Naturally, I was advised to enter a technical university.”

last two school years studied at the Physics and Mathematics School at the Moscow Aviation Institute, then entered the Moscow Institute of Electronic Engineering (MIEM) at the Faculty of Applied Mathematics. Later it turned out that Natalya's vocation is still not mathematics, in her warehouse she is more of a humanist. Although mathematics was given in exactly the same way as other subjects and problems were solved without problems, but I could not invent some kind of algorithm, prove a theorem without memorizing it before.

Institute and family in one bottle

At the institute, Natasha studied with varying degrees of success. Thanks to her school habit, she studied well, and in the first three years she studied diligently, as a rule, she earned a scholarship. Then the habits began to change and the university was graduated in 1989 without a red diploma.

Posted by: Anna

The “godmother” of Kaspersky Labs, whose anti-virus programs are installed on almost every second computer today, was able to consider the potential of her husband-programmer and the prospects of the IT direction back in 1994. For the sake of saving the business, Natalya Kasperskaya hid the divorce for a long time and until 2011 remained the general director and co-owner of the Laboratory. I was able to build from scratch not only new family, but also new business- the InfoWatch group of companies, which made it possible to maintain the status of the most influential specialist in the IT world and become one of the richest women in Russia.

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in detail

Today it’s hard to figure it out, the success story of Natalya Ivanovna Kaspersky’s business is a series of coincidences or carefully thought-out steps that helped a caring wife and mother of five children become one of the most successful and rich women in Russia.

"Natalia's biography is very similar to the path to incarnation" american dream". She was on parental leave for several years, went to work, where in six years she turned from a modest computer equipment salesman into the head of a leading and promising company to create antivirus programs”, Her husband Evgeny Kaspersky will say later.

And it all started with violent desire help a talented programmer husband. Having felt the taste of entrepreneurship, Natalya insists in 1997 on opening her own company, which received her husband's surname from her light hand. And almost independently, having headed Kaspersky Lab, he takes the business to the world level.

Even after a dramatic divorce, an ideological split with her first husband and a difficult division of shares in the business, she found the strength to start over .

By investing in InfoWatch, which the businesswoman received as a share in the division of the business, Kaspersky was able to make the company a leader in the IT sector.

According to the owner, "at the time of launch in 2003 there was only one name," and in 2015, according to Forbes, InfoWatch's revenue exceeded 1 billion rubles.

Today (2017 - author's note) Natalya Kasperskaya is a co-owner of not only InfoWatch Group, but also joint companies with Igor Ashmanov Nanosemantics, Kribrum, the German company G Data Software AG, other high-tech companies, a peasant farm "Green lamb". Actively takes part in grant, public and government projects. He is a laureate and winner of Russian and international competitions in various business categories. Included in more than 15 ratings of the most influential and successful people, including "The richest women of Russia", according to forbes.ru

Source: Forbes magazine

Childhood and youth: activist, sportswoman and diligent student

Natalya Ivanovna Kasperskaya, nee Shtutser, was born into a typical family of representatives of the “technical intelligentsia”. She got late and only child eternally busy engineers who worked in "closed" institutes.

However, her childhood and youth cannot be called standard and boring. An ordinary schoolgirl was unusually active.

“I was engaged in social activities and even was a member of the regional pioneer headquarters. In general, trips to the pioneer headquarters are one of the most vivid childhood memories: we always came up with something there, put on performances, made propaganda teams, traveled around the country, ”- N. Kasperskaya

Her interests included standard children's hobbies of collecting stamps, badges, coins, singing in the school choir and creative drawing, writing poetry. There was also time for sports, including swimming, cross-country skiing, and professional basketball at the Youth Sports School.

Thinking about the future profession, I was faced with a choice between a dream and the opinion of my parents.

“I even seriously considered choosing the profession of a veterinarian, but in high school I faced completely insurmountable problems with chemistry. ... parents - "techies" ... naturally, advised me to enter a technical university, "- N. Kasperskaya

Therefore, I graduated high school already within the walls of the Moscow Aviation Institute at the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics. Eventually higher education received at the Faculty of Applied Mathematics of the Moscow Institute of Electronic Engineering, having received a red diploma.

The first entrepreneurial experience, or "the way the stars were formed"

Further fate The future top manager is closely connected with Evgeny Kaspersky, whom she met in 1987 during a vacation in a KGB sanatorium.

A stormy romance with joint fun holidays, hiking, kayaking logically ended in a wedding, but had its sad consequences. Eugene, a student at the technical faculty of the Higher School of the KGB, was assigned to Chita, where the young wife was ready to go as a Decembrist.

Thanks to the intervention of the mother-in-law, the Kaspersky family remained in Moscow, and Evgeny begins his career in the Ministry of Defense, where he meets computer viruses.

Until 1994, the young wife was raising two sons. But he begins to think about finding a job.

“I started doing business solely because of my own weakness. After six years spent at home with children, I'm tired of sitting in four walls. It was already impossible. I deliberately ran away from home. From domestic difficulties”, - N. Kasperskaya

According to the businesswoman herself, one of the main features of her character was laziness. Therefore, she took the path of least resistance - in 1994 she got a job at the Kami company, where her husband worked at that time. Kaspersky was categorically against such a decision, as if he felt what family cooperation could lead to. But she definitely decided to be close to her husband.

At first, she traded in computer accessories, later in software. She rose through the ranks to become a sales manager by promoting and registering her husband's anti-virus product (AVP).

“It wasn't easy. I did not understand computers, I had no idea what sales were, I did not have financial and managerial skills. Of course, mistakes could not be avoided, for example, I tried to sell everything personally, which is wrong ... Now I recall with tenderness that time: people did not understand why to buy software, if it is possible to rewrite everything on a floppy disk at a neighbor's, - N. Kasperskaya

How Kaspersky Lab was born

After a trip to Hannover and a visit to the CeBIT exhibition, he invites her husband to start his own business. Finding no support, she herself opens the Data Rescue Center company in 1995. However, the business quickly went bankrupt.

Problems in the seemingly reliable, large and unsinkable Kama firm forced Kaspersky to make a choice. And he agrees with his wife to become the first in own business, refusing the offer of an English company, where, despite the fame of the name, he would be the second.

The history of Evgeny Valentinovich Kaspersky's business is filled with bright moments and resembles rapidly changing pictures of a kaleidoscope. But it was the wife who played a special role in it.

Natalya made the main and decisive step even at the moment of choosing the name of the company. Taught by her first unsuccessful entrepreneurial experience, she insisted on sonorous name. Options like "Casper and Co" evoked comical associations, while the name "Kaspersky Lab" immediately became recognizable in the computer world.

The team of start-up entrepreneurs mainly consisted of programmers who were absolutely uninterested in administrative work. Therefore, the woman had to take the reins of government into her own hands.

I got my job through family ties just by marrying computer genius. Then, however, I had to work hard to turn a brilliant work into a business.

And she, as a businessman, succeeded. Sales growth in the first years was 300%. The staff expanded from 6 to 600 people, international contracts appeared, the "Laboratory" received worldwide recognition.

The leader clearly names the reasons for the startup’s success:

  • The company successfully found itself at the origins of a new market, where the Kasperskys were pioneers.
  • The idea came at the right time, when the growth in demand was simply incredible.
  • Competitors wandered blindly, which put all participants on an equal footing.

In companies, as in people's lives, a lot also depends on luck. From the position of the stars, if you like. You can study some business methods for a long time, try to apply them, but if “the stars do not add up”, it is unlikely that everything will be easy,” N. Kasperskaya laughs.

However, luck alone was not enough to manage a rapidly growing business. There was a catastrophic lack of knowledge, which pushed the woman to receive a second education at the British Open University.

Divorce - collapse of hopes or business partnership

The first crack in the relationship appeared immediately after the creation of a joint business. BUT career wives and radically different views on many things of the spouses played a key role in the breakup of the Kasperskys, which occurred in 1997.

They officially filed for divorce in 1998, hiding the true situation from others for more than a year.

“Our divergence was a rather big blow, ... we risked losing everything, but somehow we managed to hold on, to separate the personal from the public, so to speak, from business, to separate it,” - N. Kasperskaya

Natalya continues to manage the ex-husband's business and in 2000 becomes the general director of the company. It was under her that the turnover of the "Laboratory" grew at a cosmic pace.

The ideological split with Kaspersky led to the removal of Natalya in 2007 from the position of CEO and to a complete separation in 2011 after the sale of her remaining shares.

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