Interview with Mikalai Koniukh

By Mikalai Koniukh, Associate Partner at CIVITTA 

I joined CIVITTA as an Analyst at the end of 2012. At that time, I was doing Masters in Lithuania and CIVITTA was a well-known consulting company in the Baltics. Besides that, I had a German classmate, who used to work in the company and told me about the projects and the team. His stories inspired me to give it a try and after several rounds of interviews and tests I got accepted to CIVITTA and started my career.

My first engagements were primarily in the Baltics, but after the company expanded towards the East, I got involved in projects in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine. During that time, it was quite intense: one day I could fly with a Partner to Kaliningrad, Russia and do a strategy session for the largest pork producer in Kaliningrad region, the other day fly to Minsk, Belarus to develop a strategy for one of the largest CIS toy manufacturers and at the end of the week do a research on dairy products in 4 different countries.

One of the most memorable experiences was during my engagement on the projects in Russia with our partner company Moscow Consulting Group. Together with them during 3 years I closed more than 5 projects, took more than 150 airplane flights and lived in 15 different hotels. I even once stayed in the same hotel room for half a year. In Moscow, I was mostly working with large private and governmental enterprises doing all kinds of strategic projects. 

Besides regular industries, like construction, oil and gas, telecom, food processing and others, I was also able to learn about the things that can sound new or even unusual to some people. I became familiar with the process of banana ripening, definition of “true” Finnish sauna, classification of clothing and toys for kids, process of milk separation, various sizes of plastic and metal pipes and many other interesting things that I would never learn if I wasn’t working in CIVITTA. One more thing which I really value in the company is the international experience which you gain by working for multinational companies in cross cultural team settings. It is quite normal in CIVITTA to end up in Estonia, doing a study for a Finnish sauna manufacturer in a team of Lithuanians, Estonians, Serbs and Belarusians.

For me what matters the most in the company is people: I am really passionate about working side by side with my colleagues and clients. Besides that, Civitta highly supports initiative and proactive approach. I remember I wanted to try my hand on IT projects and the company provided me with such opportunity. For almost 1 year I was managing real IT development projects and delivered them in high-quality. 

To my mind, the most valuable thing that you can receive in consulting is an internal satisfaction due to the real value which you generate for the clients. I get super motivated when I help clients grow, find financial resources, integrate processes or understand if something should be performed or not. 

For those who pursue a career in consulting, CIVITTA is a great place to experience true international environment, learn different business functions and work with various industries. It is also a company that highly supports the growth of its people.