US
Gazprom is hiring a lot of people. According to the Financial Times, it wants to recruit, ‘up to 600 staff in London’ for its Gazprom Marketing and Trading business.
The hires are to happen over an unspecified time period in the future. They will be accompanied by a move out of Gazprom’s current offices in Hampton Wick and into new offices near Regent’s Park. In the UK, Gazprom also employs 100 people in Manchester.
However, while Gazprom Marketing and Trading is expanding, its appeal is slightly equivocal. Here’s why you may, or maybe won’t, wish to work there.
Positives
1) Growth story
This is not the first time Gazprom Marketing and Trading has expanded. Its most recent accounts, filed in late 2009 show that it went from employing 148 people in 2008 to 258 people in 2009. The FT’s account suggests it now employs 400 people in the UK and that it wants to employ 1,000.
2) Enormity
Gazprom owns the world’s largest natural gas reserves and is responsible for 17% of global gas production. It owns the world’s largest gas transmission system and is trying to diversify into oil and energy production. Earlier this year, Fortune Magazine declared Gazprom the most profitable company in the world.
3) Pay
By most people’s standards, Gazprom Marketing and Trading pays fairly well. In 2009, its average compensation per head (wages and salaries alone) was 151k and the best paid director earned 2.2m.
4) Nice video
Gazprom has a nice video to attract graduate recruits. It appears to have been made by a fan of Bod.
Negatives
1) The Russian government
The Russian government owns a 50.002% controlling stake in parent company, Gazprom. Dmitry Medvedev was formerly chairman of Gazprom’s board of directors. It is not wise to antagonise the Russian government: last week assassins were allegedly sent into the US to kill the man who betrayed a Russian spy ring earlier this year. Distance may be advisable.
Equally, although much has been done to clean Gazprom up, lingering accusations of corrupt management practices at the parent company remain.
2) Pay
Although Gazprom pays well, headhunters say it doesn’t pay that well. “I’ve tried to place people there and it quickly becomes apparent that they just don’t have the money,” alleges one commodities headhunter.
3) Mostly hires from oil majors
Many of the traders working at Gazprom Marketing and Trading have a background in Shell and Total. Few come from banking. “They haven’t really hired any big P&L generators,” alleges the headhunter.
4) Most new jobs are in the middle office
Right now, Gazprom Marketing and Trading is advertising 14 jobs. Five are in IT. Three are in risk. One’s in compliance, one’s in accounting, and one’s in internal affairs. As far as we can see, only one is for a trader and one is for a front office analyst.
How can you put “Pay” as a positive and then decide that they do not “Pay” that well and stick it in the negative?
@DA – Well….I’d say 150k is fairly generous, yet the hhunter was very adamant that they’re stingy. It’s a question of what you think high pay amounts to. It was also a question of finding four separate points for each category.
Does employment there come with life-long honorary KGB membership?
If you are planning to work in Gazprom, forget at the same time about serious career in Prague, Warsaw or Riga. To some people Gazprom is synonymous with neosoviet infiltration and harmful activity, at least in Central Europe, and you will be always deemed a moscovite spy here. (Which of course may attract some individuals with low self-esteem…)
@ Pole Sorry to tell yo that Prague, Warsaw or Riga do not matter. What matters is Russia, so most people will actually be happy to work for Gazprom.
Could anyone comment about the workload in Gazprom, especially in accounting and compliance departments? Shall anyone expect peaceful living or permanent stress working there? Any other drawbacks?
Stress arising as a result of compliance work in a company that represents a lawless country? Are you kidding? The rule is that there are no rules, making it impossible and even unnecessary to comply with anything.
If you’re in Russia (and not talking about at Gazprom), politicians’ demand for bribes is the only thing you, unfortunately, have to comply with if you are to avoid being imprisoned.
I think what foreigners are gonna find most stressful in Gazprom is their corporate culture. I mean it ’cause I have experience of work in both post-soviet and in international environment. The cultural difference is just huge. The level of responsibility is also expected to be high as Gazprom bosses will definitely try to squeeze out of you all your professional knowledge and your experience in western markets
2pole and 2peter,
Russian business environment is rather open nowadays and actually welcomes foreigners. Some of western bankers made marvellous careers here. This is just one of the examples, but google Stuart Lawson’s name, for instance. He is now a retired banker who decided to stay in Moscow to read lecturesto students in Moscow’s newly-formed business school