Russian Post appoints Alexander Kiselyov as the new CEO

Russian Post has appointed Alexander Kiselyov, a former DHL manager, as the new CEO after Andrej Kazmin resigned last month after only one year in the job.

Russian Post has appointed Alexander Kiselyov, a former DHL manager, as the new CEO after Andrej Kazmin resigned in January after only one year in the job.

Kiselyov is very familiar with the postal industry as he worked at DHL International from 1991 until 1995. He started off as the DHL marketing director in St. Petersburg to become the manager of business development, responsible for the CIS countries. In 2000, he was appointed deputy minister of communications, including responsibility for postal services.

The new CEO said that he will prepare a draft for the further modernisation measures of the company together with his newly created team. The proposal will be submitted to the Ministries of Finance, Business Development and Communications. “In the tender proposal that I submitted to the Federal Postal Agency, I suggested to continue the programme approved in 2002 which envisages the company’s transformation into a stock corporation. But I think it won’t happen until 2011,” he said.

Kiselyov, 47, added that “the top priority is the marketing advancement of the company’s EMS services.” He also suggested a cooperation programme with Svyaz Bank to expand the financial and banking structure of Russian Post. “The new shareholder of Svyaz Bank, Vnesheconombank, is not objecting to it and we are currently in active negotiations regarding this matter.”

Ivan Shatskikh, the UPS CEO of CIS countries, was cited as saying that Kiselyov can bring some positive changes to the company due to his experience at DHL, even though these shouldn’t be expected too soon. He added that Kiseloyv can apply his experience at DHL to enhance EMS services. “Theoretically, a strong express delivery network can be established on the basis of Russian Post’s 40,000 offices. But it is difficult to say to which extent it can be achieved. For the moment, the company’s share in the Russian express market doesn’t exceed 10%.”

According to his estimations, the market of the international express delivery in Russia is controlled to 85% by the “big four”: UPS, FedEx, DHL and TNT. In terms of domestic delivery within Russia, the big four account for 45-50% of the market. In 2008, the Russian express market revenues, including international delivery, amounted to $1.5bn, Shatskikh added.