The Path to Success in Fintech: An Interview with Dmitry Borunov
Dmitry Borunov graduated from the STI master’s programme in 2019. Over the five years since his graduation, Dmitry has progressed from a digital transformation consultant at IBM to the head of the business credit products team at Ozon Bank, and has been included in the Forbes “30 Under 30” list. We spoke with Dmitry about his education at HSE University, his career at major banks in the country, and, most importantly, about understanding the purpose behind it all.
EDUCATION AND THE START OF A CAREER
Dmitry, please tell us about your educational path. Why did you decide to pursue a master’s degree in STI Management and Policy after completing your bachelor’s in international relations and already working at Spencer Stuart International?
During my bachelor’s studies, I received a high‑quality fundamental education in international relations, political science, history, and developed strong foreign language skills. However, I wanted to acquire something more practical in a field related to innovation and new technologies as I was gradually developing an understanding that I definitely wanted to do something in this area. And these fields are not as distant from each other as they might seem — new technologies that change people’s lives often influence the political sphere more strongly than any “classical” factors. So, among other things, I was interested in understanding how technologies might develop in the medium and long term, how they would change society and, therefore, influence politics both in the general sense of the word and in policies in specific areas – from education to the regulation of entire sectors of the economy.
Partly because of this interest I was able to prepare well for the faculty Olympiad and win it. And, of course, I wanted to contribute to the creation of high-quality digital services that improve the experience of a large number of users. I wanted to create something that would make solving a common problem faster, more convenient, or more cost-effective, and see the scale of the value created and my contribution reflected in the metrics. Thus in my second year, alongside my studies, I began working in consulting at IBM, where I got the opportunity to participate in such projects – for some of the largest companies in Russia and beyond.
KEY KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS
What skills gained during your master’s studies have proven to be the most useful for you?
The “STI Management and Policy” programme offers something that many other programmes and universities lack — its’ courses do not merely provide an opportunity, but actually require students to engage in forecasting and use their imagination when analysing what lies beyond the 5–10‑year horizon. Typically, most educational programmes focus on providing practical knowledge — the kind that is needed here and now for employment. Much of today’s education is geared towards large IT companies, big tech, fintech, and so on. However, due to the nature of the modern world, such knowledge can quickly become outdated, and this approach is not about the long term strategic thinking.
In business and other fields, it is crucial to be able to think long‑term and make forecasts – thus Foresight courses were particularly valuable. They covered a detailed overview of strategic planning methods as well as approaches to looking ahead and understanding where society and the economy are heading, and how one can adapt to upcoming changes. Before enrolling in the STI programme, I had no idea there was a real methodology for this — that one could review a retrospective to see how this methodology had been applied in the past, and examine how its conclusions and approaches correlate with what actually happened, and where it proved accurate. The programme gave me many opportunities to move beyond short‑term thinking and work on developing a long‑term mindset. In this sense, the programme can help prepare for “tomorrow”, not just provide knowledge for “today” — and that’s a great thing.
CAREER PATH
How has the long-term planning skill influenced your career decisions?
For example, I was able to evaluate the prospects and development paths of the companies I was considering for transferring from Avito. I consciously chose Ozon Bank, recognizing the potential for fintech development based on the Ozon marketplace. It was a risky transition for me for many reasons. It was a sharp career shift and a major challenge as I hadn’t previously worked with the products I was transitioning to. But I took this risk consciously, analyzing the alternatives and relying on the trends that were already visible or expected to emerge in the near future, and I can only be glad I made that decision. Now I’m building part of the foundation of one of Russia’s most promising fintech companies, so there are truly many interesting challenges and opportunities for growth here.
Before moving to Ozon Bank, you worked in consulting at IBM, T-Bank, and Avito. What experience did you gain at these companies?
IBM iX wasn’t as well-known in the Russian market as the “big three” strategic consulting firms, but it was the first to launch digital transformation projects and offer not only consulting but also implementation services. We didn’t simply prepare a strategy and leave the client to it; we were ready to implement our advice. This was a very attractive value proposition for clients, many of whom were tired of the sound advice they paid for, but which they couldn’t implement. Thus I gained a strategic consulting experience as well as the product manager experience. Our clients ranged widely – from the country’s largest banks to entire regions whose administrations wanted to digitalize their citizen services more quickly and effectively. I think this is the ideal combination of experience that can be gained in consulting: it offers strategic analysis with a high-level overview, and hands-on experience on how to implement it on the ground and demonstrate real measurable results, not just pretty slides.
After working in consulting, I often joined projects that were either starting from scratch or in a phase of active growth. This meant I had to build teams, prepare roadmaps, plan market entry strategy, search for product-market fit, and quickly test and adjust many things on the fly. I rarely found myself in a situation where everything was already running smoothly, following pre‑laid tracks, and all that was needed was to tweak a few minor details and maintain the existing solution.
T-Bank was probably somewhat of an exception in this regard. I joined it at the peak of its growth – the core products were already built and scaled, there was a solid foundation and a strong team. I was more focused on developing previously launched products and making them more mature and user-friendly. This is the stage where you don’t launch from scratch, but rather refine and polish – aiming to provide not just a good user experience, but an almost perfect one. My colleagues had “laid the first stone” several years earlier: they had launched new products and rapidly grown with them into leaders responsible for major business areas – and that is when I understood that growth is less noticeable in a mature environment. It’s faster where there’s room to develop an entire area from scratch — where you can take responsibility for large‑scale launches and see them through to completion.
Largely for this reason I moved from T‑Bank to Avito – to launch online booking for services, a strategically important direction for the company. Avito had long existed as a classifieds board with the option to message or call, but it gradually became clear that customers of the services market found it inconvenient to book appointments by phone or via chat — because more convenient and faster online calendar booking had long been available. For service providers, this was also more convenient: they could flexibly manage their schedules, know that bookings would automatically be added to their free slots, and avoid being distracted from their work by calls and repetitive messaging. For Avito, the online booking offered the chance to track reservations more fairly and charge commissions only for those that resulted in a service being provided and the provider earning money — rather than for all calls, chats, or ad views. In other words, this was an opportunity to grow the audience, improve the take rate, and boost loyalty through a more transparent and fair commission model. By the time I joined Avito, several studies had been conducted confirming the audience’s readiness for this innovation, thus the top management decided to launch the product – and my team and I brought it to life.
When I considered moving to Ozon Bank, I saw opportunities I hadn’t had at T‑Bank – the chance to launch entire business line from scratch. That’s how I joined Ozon’s fintech team to develop business lending. Here, I have a larger scope of responsibility, a bigger team, more open strategic questions, and more priority‑setting tasks. And, of course, there’s an endless number of details related to credit products — their features, technical and regulatory nuances, and much more. All this is a very valuable experience.
MOTIVATION AND RESULTS
In 2025, you were included in the Forbes “30 Under 30” list in the “Finance and Investments” category. How did this impact you, and what did it give you?
I think it’s worth highlighting two key points here. First, it’s the community of people who have made it into the ranking in different years — a community I’ve now become part of. It now includes about 300 people. These are true leaders from various fields: engaging, versatile, and possessing deep expertise. Interacting with them is invaluable in itself. Second, being included in the ranking brings a certain reputation. as nominees undergo an independent evaluation by both experts and the editorial board, assessing their professional background, achievements, and completed projects. This external independent evaluation is also highly valuable. I believe that being included in the ranking says as much about the company I work for as it does about me – it's an indicator of the potential of Ozon's fintech and how it’s perceived from the outside. After all, being considered “promising” in this context refers not only to me personally, but also to the company where I work and have the opportunity to grow.
What motivates you more – seeing the business grow or your own growth?
At the start of my career, it was important for me to grow fast – and it wasn’t about position growth or the salary. It was important to gain experience developing and launching large-scale products, to learn the processes at market-leading companies, and to grow together with my product through its various lifecycle stages – from launch to maturity and scaling. The focus was more on my own growth: to establish myself professionally, build up experience and a portfolio of projects, and feel confident in this field.
But once I reached a fairly senior position and a greater area of responsibility, my focus shifted. It is not just my own growth that motivates me, but the opportunity to influence something bigger through my products. I think this is a fairly natural transformation — I see it in many professionals across various fields. Most of my motivation today comes from this: if we analyse the development of digital services in Russia over recent years and their impact on people’s lives, I’m confident that few things can compare to marketplaces, which are now present in nearly every village. Residents of small villages have access to the same consumer opportunities that were previously only available to city dwellers — and even then, not to everyone, and often not within walking distance. It’s fair to say that a real revolution has taken place — something comparable only to the development of the internet, when everyone gained equal access to information. Now, this equalisation has extended to access to goods. The only difference is delivery speed, but that may only vary by a few days and will continue to shrink in the future.
In this I see an important difference between Ozon Bank and many other banks – business growth metrics often don’t so clearly translate into improved experiences for large numbers of people and into better quality of life, but at Ozon Bank it’s much clearer how these results translate into the development of services used by most Russians. This includes even faster delivery, discounts and sales, an expanded network of pickup points, better product quality control, courier home delivery, and perhaps even delivery by robots and drones in the foreseeable future, which will make delivery even faster and cheaper. Many of these solutions are innovative and are being implemented in Russia for the first time or among the first – and they’re largely made possible by the funds generated through the fintech arm. So for me, it’s not just about profit from our work per se, but about new solutions the company can implement with that profit — for the benefit of tens of millions of people.
Feeling connected to this is a great source of value and motivation for me. My favorite channel in our corporate messenger is “Ozon and Industry News”. Every Friday it features a post about what Ozon and its competitors have done over the week – what services they’ve launched or improved. Even when work is tough, it helps me answer the question “What's the point of all this?”. Ultimately, the value created by this work gradually reaches a huge number of people rather than just looking good on a report.
While working at Ozon Bank, you managed to improve the Customer Satisfaction Index by 10%. Is that a significant increase, and how did you accomplish it?
This was indeed a significant achievement – especially considering the current state of the credit market, which is challenging due to the high key interest rate (and a year ago, it was even higher). In a situation where people have to borrow money at high rates, proposing new solutions to boost customer satisfaction is no easy task. However, we succeeded in making our customers genuinely more satisfied with our services and more loyal. We tried various tools — ranging from improving the UI/UX to introducing personalised offers. For example, we implemented a financial compensation programme for our customers and, as a result, became more customer‑centric, which helped us both retain existing customers and attract new ones.
I personally review customer inquiries and complaints on a regular basis, dive into their issues, and try to meet them halfway whenever possible. This direct contact with users — when you communicate with them personally and immerse yourself in their situation, rather than just focusing on strategic matters — is crucial for any product manager. Based on the received feedback I can see that customers are genuinely finding things more convenient, and their issues are being resolved faster. This is also highly motivating: hearing about the results of your work first‑hand is truly rewarding.
PROFESSIONAL CHALLENGES
When it comes to the biggest challenges in your career and how you tackled them, what are you most proud of?
The first thing that comes to mind is my first project as a product manager: launching a credit pipeline at the largest retail bank in Azerbaijan when I was working for IBM. Incidentally, this was while I was studying for my master's degree. It was my first project where I was solely responsible for the launch. For the client, it was a step forward in business development and innovation; for me, it was a major challenge — I had to learn everything on the fly. It was difficult, but it helped me acquire the necessary skills more quickly.
If we talk about recent projects, it is the launch of a revolving credit line for legal entities at Ozon Bank. This opens up an opportunity for us to work with a new customer segment and offer them a more convenient loan repayment schedule. The project was challenging in terms of multitasking and the number of departments involved: all bank functions participated in the implementation – from accounting to marketing. In the end, we met the planned deadlines without any delays, not even a single day. That’s not something you see often in projects of this scale.
I believe the way to handle such challenges is universal: learn quickly and don’t be ashamed of having knowledge gaps. It’s better to acknowledge them early and seek advice from more experienced colleagues than to make avoidable mistakes and waste time. There’s no such thing as a stupid question. What you should worry about is repeated questions – when it becomes clear that a person isn’t absorbing information quickly and isn’t learning from their mistakes.
ADVICE FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS OF STUDENTS
What advice сould you give to future students in the program to get the most out of the master's programme?
I would advise valuing the opportunity to meet those you’ve been brought together with in the same classroom. I believe that there are few random people in such programmes — after all, they go there consciously and with certain interests. If you find yourself sitting next to someone, you likely have common interests, perhaps shared motivation and a vision for your future development. In the moment, such connections may seem like just pleasant pastime, but over time, you’ll realize how valuable they are — not only pleasant but also useful. You’ll help each other with information, contacts, and more.
I’ve already mentioned how important it is to study disciplines that can help answer long-term questions. I think that in any higher education, you should try to use the time and access to professors to think about these topics. When you start working, it will be much harder to find such opportunities. This is true for political scientists, managers, and physicists alike. Thinking about how your field of interest will change in the medium and long term is a very useful and interesting exercise. In my opinion, higher education is largely about broadening your horizons and having the opportunity to think broadly about what’s happening in the world (with the help of more experienced mentors). It’s no coincidence that many ideas and projects are born within university walls and then developed beyond them.
Finally, the sooner you start working, the better, because it always provides the opportunity to gain practical skills and better understand what’s happening at the forefront of your field. If you manage to combine work and study, as I did, it’s a great opportunity to lay a solid foundation for your professional growth. The ability to combine study with work and be successful in both often speaks more about a person’s abilities than anything else, and employers pay attention to this.
