Land Of Opportunity
Capitalizing on chaos, Ian Bremmer opens doors for foreign business in Russia.
This article is for subscribers only.
In August, 1998, soon after launching a consulting firm aimed at helping U.S. companies do business in the former Soviet Union, Ian Bremmer got a surprise: the near-collapse of the Russian economy. He couldn't have been happier. "It's precisely because of the chaos that we are a successful business," says Bremmer, president of New York-based Eurasia Group.
Bremmer has built a thriving company by helping clients negotiate the confusing byways of post-Soviet commerce. Revenues for Eurasia Group reached $1.5 million in 1999, Bremmer says, and he expects them to soar as high as $5 million this year, thanks in part to widespread uncertainty about Russia's newly elected President Vladimir V. Putin. "Putin remains a huge question mark," he says.