Exodus of Romanian managers to Russia

At least three Romanian executives have taken management positions in Russia, at the helm of businesses worth several hundred million euros.
The last one to be promoted to such a position was Lucian Dorobanțu, who had run the local subsidiary of the Spanish group Inditex (which sells brands such as Zara and Bershka) since 2007 and took the reins of the Inditex group in Russia. He is the last one to join Romanian managers ‘exported’ to Russia in the last few months – Angela Crețu (general manager of Avon Russia) and Ruxandra Stoian (partner of PwC Russia).
“The salaries of Romanian managers promoted in Russia tend to be double as high as those they received in Romania, ranging between 120,000 and 250,000 euros in net amount per year. They tend to come back after a few years because they don’t want to stay in a country where it is hard for them to live if they don’t speak the language,” said Werner Stein, president of executive search firm Stein & Partners, the German headhunter who has been recruiting Romanian executives ever since 1996.
The exodus of Romanian managers to Russia, which started back in the early 2000s and which stopped in the years of economic growth, has seen managers such as Mihai Albu (InBev) and Florin Trandafirescu (Unilever) run businesses of over one billion euros in Russia. The first one was Tudor Furir, the current CEO of Pernod Ricard, who was appointed sales manager at Coca Cola Russia in 1996.