Team
Leadership
Ernest Sultanov, the Coordinator of MIR Initiative.
He is a lawyer and manager with extensive practice in company restructuring and realization of Public-Private Partnership projects focused on Europe and Russia. As Head of External Affairs and International Development of High Speed Railways (Russian Railways) he was responsible for launching the Eurasian High-Speed Corridor Moscow-Beijing project. He formerly was Head of Legal for European steelmaker Lucchini S.p.A. (Severstal Group).
Mr. Sultanov is also a writer and columnist at the major Russian newspapers Kommersant, Vedomosti and The Moscow Times.
He holds a PhD from Moscow State University of International Relations and an MBA from Polytechnic Institute of Milan and Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies.
Jan C. Harder, the Chairman of the Steering Committee of MIR Initiative.
Mr.Harder is also a Vice President Sales and Supply Chain Management of Molinari Rail Group, Switzerland. Before joining Molinari Rail he worked in different management positions with Alstom Transport as Vice President Business Development in the CIS Region of Alstom Transport responsible for systems, infrastructure and signalling business from 2012 to 2015. Before that he worked within Siemens AG, Germany and Siemens LLC, Russia in the Postal Automation, Airport Infrastructure and Rail Systems. He has an extensive experience in Sales, Strategy, Supply Chain Management and Legal. Since 2012 he was Customer Director for Russian Railways with a special focus on the Very High Speed development in Russia. Mr. Harder participates in international expert panels, forums and conferences in Rail market as a key speaker and expert and initiated cooperation with Moscow Railway Engineering University to improve education of new Railway talents of the future. He was a member of Committee for strategic Issues of the Russian Non-profit partnership "Union of industries of Railway Equipment" (NP "UIRE") (www.opzt.ru), member of the WIrtschaftsclub Russland and the Rotary Club Moscow International.
Team (Russia)
Our team consists of students and alumni of top Russian universities: Lomonosov MSU, Higher School of Economics, New Economic School, Saint Petersburg State University, etc.