Why your first job is as important as your leadership role

As more millennials enter organizations, what skills should they acquire for successful careers?

Now an EY alumnus, Boris is also the Chief Operating Officer at Rusnano, a management company for private equity and venture capital funds. He is still in touch with former colleagues from EY socially, and continues to seek and provide professional advice.

“Coming straight from the university,” he says “you think you have some fundamental knowledge of economics and finance. But you don't know how things are actually really done in the real world.”

The early years of his nine-year stint at EY, Boris says, taught him discipline, communication, how to work under pressure and how to meet the demand for high quality. “You learn to check and check again that what you have done is right.”

“As you move up,” he adds, “you start to learn certain industries, you see a variety of clients, you meet more people [and] you build the networking relationships within the firm. So you are actually trying to add some value to your clients. As you move up, that's also very valuable. … I'm very thankful for those.”

One skill from EY that Boris values the most

“Of all the skills — technical, social, soft or hard, it doesn't matter — I think the one which I probably would value the most, for myself, personally, it's the quality. Because you are used to doing things to a certain quality. And you require this from the people you work with, and you require this from yourself. So, I think the quality of things being done is something that I would value the most.”