AI Boss School: Skolkovo, Yandex and ITMO Are Training a New Generation of AI Executives
A new nine-month program for “Chief AI Officers” aims to help companies turn AI systems into measurable business results instead of experimental side projects.
Job postings for Chief AI Officers at major Russian companies are becoming increasingly common. Demand for AI executives has grown twofold to threefold in recent months. Previously, these specialists were mostly recruited by giants such as Sber and Gazprom. Now midsize businesses are joining the race as well.
Yandex Is Giving Away Cloud Credits
That growing talent gap is exactly what the new program from ITMO University, Skolkovo School of Management and Yandex is designed to address. The nine-month intensive course targets senior executives. Participants will learn not just how to deploy chatbots, but how to integrate AI into manufacturing, sales, HR and budgeting in ways that generate real financial returns from infrastructure and algorithms.
Participants will develop a roadmap and financial model tailored to their own company. They will also receive grants for Yandex cloud computing resources and access to the Yandex AI Studio platform, allowing them to build custom AI agents for data analysis and automation. The program concludes with a strategy defense before an expert panel and a Skolkovo diploma.
From Chizhik to Steelmaking
To understand what graduates of the new program are expected to do, it helps to look inside some of Russia’s largest companies. Take X5 Retail Group, which operates Pyatyorchka, Perekryostok and Chizhik. The company views AI as a strategic investment in the long-term future of retail. It has created an entire department, employing several hundred people, dedicated to AI development. The team is actively automating processes where the business case is clear.
Or consider Severstal. The company does not have a formal Chief AI Officer, but it does have a head of digital transformation. That executive oversees a team of more than 100 specialists running over 60 projects simultaneously. In 2024 alone, those efforts generated more than 2 billion rubles (approximately $25.5 million) in economic impact. The gains came largely from neural-network tools helping steelworkers and logistics teams operate more efficiently. By 2030, Severstal wants the overwhelming majority of employees to use AI tools as routinely as Excel.
But perhaps the most striking example is Avito. The company has maintained a dedicated AI director role for years. Today, entire divisions report into that structure, including data science, analytics, search and recommendation systems. Altogether, more than 900 specialists work under the AI umbrella. The financial upside is already being quantified. According to company forecasts, these technologies are expected to generate more than 21 billion rubles (approximately $268 million) in additional revenue by 2028. That helps explain why companies are now competing aggressively for AI executives and offering salaries reaching 1 million rubles per month (about $12,800).
From Silicon Valley to Pyatyorchka
The rise of the “executive in charge of the robots” happened gradually. The global timeline helps explain why Skolkovo is launching this program now.
As early as 2016, Google expanded the Google Brain team and created the standalone Google AI division under Jeff Dean. Apple hired John Giannandrea, the former head of Google Search, to lead machine learning and AI strategy. Microsoft systematically built AI governance into its Azure cloud ecosystem. That was the moment when corporations realized AI had become too important to remain subordinate to traditional IT departments.
By 2021, the technology had stopped being a Silicon Valley toy. Chief AI Officer positions started appearing in banks including JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs, pharmaceutical companies such as Pfizer and Novartis, and even automakers through organizations like BMW and Toyota AI Ventures. Artificial intelligence became its own operational domain.
Then came the post-ChatGPT era through 2025. Companies that historically had little to do with tech began introducing AI leadership roles. Unilever, Nestlé, Procter & Gamble and Walmart launched AI-focused groups at the executive level. Their goal was no longer just to build customer-support bots, but to redesign global supply chains and marketing systems.
Today, Russia is aligning with that global trend. But there is one important distinction: the process is moving much faster because of import substitution pressures. The Skolkovo program is a response to a demand that has been building for the last five years, from the AI360 undergraduate track for top students to Sber’s rankings of AI leaders.
The Closed Club of “AI Generals”
Chief AI Officer is still a new profession, but it is quickly losing its exotic status. Anton Nemkin, a State Duma deputy and coordinator of the Tsifrovaya Rossiya (Digital Russia) project, says vacancies involving these responsibilities have risen by 30% to 40% in recent months. His forecast is that within the next year or two, the role will become as standard as CIO positions are today.
Why does that matter? Because an AI executive is responsible not only for the speed of code deployment, but also for data trust and regulatory compliance. As governments increase oversight of digital environments, companies need leaders who understand how to avoid regulatory risks and fines.
Russia is now approaching a new management boom. Skolkovo, Yandex and ITMO are preparing what could become the country’s first generation of “AI generals” – executives equipped with credentials, operational experience and professional networks designed to help move companies into the next stage of AI adoption.
