Turning A Flagship Investment Forum Into a Digital Success: VTB Capital’s RUSSIA CALLING! Investment Forum

The 12th Annual VTB Capital RUSSIA CALLING! Investment Forum, held on 29-30 October 2020 and hosted by Russia’s VTB Group, has won in two categories of the Global Brands Awards from Global Brands Magazine: Best Investment Forum in the EMEA Region and Best Investor Relations Conference in the EMEA Region. This award represents a huge achievement for the group, which managed to a shift the flagship event to a digital format.

We live in an increasingly borderless world in which business is global, and such events as VTB Capital’s annual investment forum serves as the perfect venue to bring together international investment community to discuss both Russian and international economic issues. In 2020, it became the first major event in the financial, economic, and investment landscape to finally enable a live dialogue between key business leaders, state representatives, and the investment community after months of pandemic-imposed quarantine and restrictive measures adopted globally. As the pandemic hit, the world seemingly became a lot smaller, impacting our ability to make global connections. However, in the face of adversity lies innovation, and the VTB team were determined to facilitate meaningful discussion between government, investors and the broader business community in this new environment, turning challenges into solutions and implementing new technology to host a first-ever online RUSSIA CALLING! Forum.

The resulting digital-first forum was a hit and saw a truly global audience tuning into a series of top level presentations and discussion. Thanks to VTB’s slickly designed digital platform for the event the bank was able to emulate the impact of an in-person event via a digital platform. Panel sessions included speeches by experts from studios around the world, including Europe, USA, Asia and the Middle East, discussing the transformations brought on by the pandemic, lessons learned and solutions to revive business and investment activity in the new environment. The live broadcasts of the event on television and online streaming were watched by more than 3 million people. Overall, the forum brought together participants and viewers from 104 countries.

As such, 2020 was the first year that the event was held online with the Forum’s panel discussions being broadcast across leading Russian and international media platforms and the Forum’s website. Viewers across the globe had a chance to participate in Russia’s flagship investment event by simply tuning into the live streaming of the sessions.

The theme of Forum’s first day was ‘Global Challenges, Local Remedies’, and the discussion brought together senior speakers to share their views on the the current status of global and Russian economy in light of the pandemic.  Traditionally, the plenary session’s keynote speaker was Russian President Vladimir Putin. As part of the event, he spoke with foreign business leaders and investors and answered questions from 18 representatives of the international business community.

The second day featured a VTB Capital Investments-sponsored panel session, ‘Investment horizons in the post-pandemic period’, and a session on ‘The pandemic and safe future technologies’ with leading international experts.

Yuri Soloviev, First Deputy President and Chairman of VTB Bank Management Board, said:

“2020 was a challenging year for businesses, investors and people, but Russia took on the economic difficulties with dignity. Its openness, and its readiness to facilitate dialogue between the state, entrepreneurs and investors, played an important role in this. VTB adapted quickly to the pandemic, providing an updated platform for what has already become a traditional meeting between Russian and international business. The forum was held online and aroused keen interest among the business community, both in Russia and abroad.”

About VTB Capital’s “RUSSIA CALLING!” Investment Forum

The VTB Capital Investment Forum “RUSSIA CALLING!” has been held annually since 2009. Every year the event attracts an authoritative audience, including representatives of government agencies, heads of Russian and international companies and investors. The agenda of the forum covers the most pressing issues of the global economy, finance and business sectors. The forum’s influence and credibility among the business community has been repeatedly recognized by a number of international awards, including the IPRA Golden World Awards, Extel Survey, Communicate Magazine’s Corporate and Financial Awards.