When you last bought an ice cream from at a Ramzay kiosk, did you know that the company is named after a mountain pass and that it originally produced hiking products? Back in 1991, a young and ambitious group of friends decided to start their own business. Having sewn hiking outfits for themselves they decided to set up an outdoor equipment company, called Ramzay, to meet the demands of Russian trekkers. Ilya Gordeyev became the head of the company at 21, and managed to transform it from a struggling equipment manufacturer into one of the largest ice-cream producers in Russia.

Ilya Gordeyev, the general director and co-founder of Ramzay, a group of companies that includes an ice-cream company and eight Ramzay cafes in Moscow, spoke with The Leader about the group’s history, its achievements, challenges and goals for the future.

How did you reach the position of general director at such an early age?
It is easily explained by the fact that I founded the company myself — it was called Ramzay Ltd. — and I naturally became its top executive. Actually, the company was created in 1991, when I was 21 years old. Obviously, I didn’t have much time to acquire a great amount of work experience. Before Ramzay was founded my main professional activities consisted of being a Pioneer leader at school, teaching (I had graduated from a teachers’ training university), and hiking.

You have a law degree. Does this background help you in your work? If so, in what way?
Yes, it helps me a great deal. Mostly, it gives me a professional knowledge of legal documents. I can read and understand different regulations and state resolutions, as well as read between the lines. At the moment I’m also studying commerce, something closely connected with my profession, and this education is more than useful as I already have some practical knowledge in the field.

How did you come to choose in the ice-cream industry?
I should say that at the very beginning I had no intention of going into ice-cream production. When my friends and I, now the shareholders in the company, decided to launch a business, we started to think of what would work at that point in time. We loved hiking and needed different hiking equipment that was impossible to find in stores in early 90s, we had to make them ourselves: We sewed backpacks, ropes and hiking kits, and became quite good at it. So, we came up with the idea of setting up a hiking equipment shop. My friend suggested the name of the Ramzay pass in the Khibinsky Mountain, and we all liked it. But it was not until April of 1992 that we started to produce and sell ice cream.

We got the idea during one of our stops at the Ramzay pass when we fed kids with ice cream made of mountain snow, condensed milk and dried milk. (Many of our shareholders are former teachers, and we often took children hiking and made ice cream at mountain passes.) And thus the Ramzay ice-cream company was born.

What are the peculiarities and innovations of your ice-cream company?
We experiment with new sorts of ice cream all the time, but it is difficult to invent anything totally new. A new mold, a new filling or a new icing are possible, but the main method remains the same: mixing the ingredients, leaving them for some time, whipping, cooling down, adding water, pouring into the molds. About 95 percent of ice-cream producers in the world make ice cream using the equipment of only two main manufacturers, both Finnish. And there’s really nothing new to invent.

We try to keep the tradition of Soviet and Russian quality ice cream alive. The taste of Russian ice cream is very different from that of the rest of the world. Russians like fatty ice cream. This is not just a tradition; it is deep in us, genetically conditioned in some way. Our bodies are used to animal fat.

Europeans use mainly vegetable fat, which is lighter and has a different taste. We’ve conducted a great deal of marketing research, so we tailor our ice cream to Russian taste. Even our export ice cream meets demand by Russians living in other C.I.S. countries, Eastern Europe, Turkey, Germany and Israel.

How do you expand your company and improve its products?
One of our short-term goals is to acquire a 75 percent stake in Servis-Holding by 2002. This would mean expanding our business by 40 percent, which is a really significant. I think this is a step toward a new level for us.


As far as management quality is concerned, we try to offer studying abroad for our top management. For example, one of our top managers is pursuing an M.B.A. in Oxford now. In my opinion, education is a very important ingredient for high-quality work, and, unfortunately, Russia doesn’t provide real management education due to the novelty of this profession in our country.

What is more important — enthusiasm or experience for an entrepreneur?
I believe that there are two types of entrepreneurs: businessmen and managers. Businessmen are the doers; they actually run the business, and oftentimes succeed with little experience but a lot of energy. Then there are managers. A good manager needs experience and education. I don’t consider myself to be a manager. I am open to the possibility that some day my position in the company will be taken over by an excellent manager, and this would bring a lot of good.

Are you satisfied with what you do? Do you think you chose the right road for yourself?
It’s hard to judge now, but I think I like what we have done and are doing. Besides, I have an opportunity to be involved in things that interest me, such as the ice-cream festival, an event the Association of Capital Ice Cream launched in 1997, which I find exciting because it is a great public event and advertising opportunity. We are already preparing for the 2002 celebration.

Do you have any new ideas for your personal growth?
In a few years I’m going to occupy myself with something else. Now Ramzay is trying to make itself absolutely transparent to shareholders. Certainly, I’m not the only shareholder now, and I dream about Ramzay becoming a public company and appearing on international stock market. Technically it could be done even now, but the company should grow more to fit Western stock markets. If this comes true, I would not have to manage the company on a daily basis, and I would be able to occupy myself with a new business. I have so many ideas, I need to decide which one I want to focus on.