AmBAR Event: Google and Yandex: Stirring the Silicon Valley Melting Pot

When: April 30,2009
Registration: http://www.ambarclub.org/civicrm/event/info?reset=1&id=4

The dictionary defines the “Melting Pot” as a place where immigrants of different races and cultures create an integrated society. The term itself, not surprisingly, originated in the United States, where 1 in 9 Americans is an immigrant and where 1/5 of the U.S. residents speak a language other than English at home.

More than half of Silicon Valley's startups of the last decade were founded by at least one immigrant, making names like Andy Grove, Vinod Khosla and Sergey Brin – household names nation and worldwide.

However, the realities of living, working, communicating and managing companies in the multi-cultural environment present great challenges.

We have invited two of the hottest Silicon Valley brand names – Google and Yandex -- to talk about their experiences in this area. Google, as we all know, wrote a (cook!) book on integrating multiple nationalities. Yandex, a leading Russian search engine, has just established an R&D Lab in CA – with the expressed intent of taking advantage of the international talent in the Bay Area. With decades of collective experience under their belt, our panelists are prepared to share their insights, stories, personal anecdotes, and gaffs – in a session that promises to be both educational and fun!

• How can Russians, Indians, Chinese, Japanese, French, Israeli, and other nationalities successfully co-operate in the work place?
• How can one learn to communicate “the American Way” while at the same time respecting the Asian, European, and Middle Eastern cultural differences?
• How can one appreciate the notions of hierarchy and formality in Asian cultures and adapt them to the free-wheeling Silicon Valley environment?
• How can one channel the strong and forceful opinions of the Russian and Israeli employees into constructive suggestions?
• How can one run a meeting, conduct a successful job interview, and give a US-style presentation?

Panelists:

Vish Makhijani, President and CEO, Yandex Labs


Prior to joining Yandex Labs, Vish served in a variety of key leadership roles at Yahoo! for the past 5 years, most recently as Senior Vice President of Yahoo!'s Search Group. In this position he managed products such as Yahoo! Search, Yahoo! Answers, Delicious, Yahoo! Local, Yahoo! Shopping, Yahoo! Personals and Yahoo! Travel.
Prior to his Search Group role, Mr. Makhijani was a key member of the Search and International leadership team at Yahoo! He led the sale of Overture KK to Yahoo! Japan, the launch of the company’s proprietary search engine in international markets and the international launch of Panama, Yahoo!’s search advertising system. In 2003, Mr. Makhijani was also instrumental in the sale of Inktomi to Yahoo! Inktomi’s Web search technology later became the foundation of Yahoo’s search efforts.

Lydia Mazzie, Senior Manager of Engineering Operations,  Google

Lydia lead the effort of starting Google Russia, as well as a number of other R&D centers across the world, and is currently coordinating the work of many Google remote offices.  Prior to joining Google, Lydia was a financial analyst at Morgan Stanley. Mrs. Mazzie holds BA in Business Administration from Berkeley, CA.

Rochelle Kopp, Managing Principal, Japan Intercultural Consulting

Rochelle Kopp is an authority on Asia Pac culture and business. As a consultant specializing in cross-cultural communications, she has extensive experience working with Asia Pac organizations and their non Asian suppliers and partners. Rochelle is the author of The Rice-Paper
Ceiling: Breaking Through Japanese Corporate Culture and over a dozen books in Japanese. She is a frequent speaker, and has also taught courses in Organization Behavior and Entrepreneurship at Northwestern University. She holds a B.A. summa cum laude in History from Yale University and an M.B.A. with honors from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business.

Moderator:

Natasha Krol, Board Member AmBAR; Managing Partner Alexander & Krol Executive Search, LLC

Prior to starting her own firm, Ms. Krol was a Senior Client Partner with Korn/Ferry International’s Global Technology Market, based in the firm’s Silicon Valley office.  Previously, Ms. Krol was a Vice President and Service Director of Advanced Information Management Strategies for the META Group (now Gartner.) Her clients included senior executives within Global 2000 companies, as well as the venture capital community. She was also instrumental in establishing company subsidiaries throughout Europe, South Africa and Asia Pacific.   Ms.Krol has been a featured keynote speaker at more than 50 international conferences. She is a frequent contributor to Angel Investor Russia where she writes about talent management, recruiting strategies, eLearning, executive compensation and other human capital related issues.