I co-founded Dars Consulting in 1999. More than 27 years later, the principle behind my work remains remarkably consistent: to create strong, positive and lasting associations around companies, countries and ideas among the audiences whose decisions matter.
But I have never seen communications as an end in itself. My work usually starts with a business, investment or institutional objective. What needs to change in the way a company, country, industry or opportunity is understood? What are its genuine competitive advantages? Who needs to understand and believe in them? What associations need to be created — and how can they ultimately influence decisions?
I develop concepts and strategies, but my work does not stop there. We implement them. We turn strategies into brands, visual identities, films, international media campaigns, content, business platforms, conferences and experiences. Increasingly, I see visualisation itself as an essential part of strategy: the future described in a document becomes considerably more powerful when people can actually see and imagine it.
Some of Dars Consulting’s earliest work was with Pierre Cardin, where we worked with its corporate gifts business on an idea that went beyond selling products: using corporate gifts to create lasting associations between companies and the people important to them.
In the early 2000s, we worked on the marketing and communications of international luxury brands including Versace, Bulgari, Rosenthal and Hutschenreuther, with our work in the premium sector later extending to brands including Royal Doulton.
The challenge was already one that would recur throughout my career: how do you communicate value that cannot be explained by price or product specifications alone?
Our work was about placing craftsmanship, design, heritage, lifestyle and status around the product — changing the context in which its value was understood.
At approximately the same time, our work with the first official Mercedes-Benz dealer in Russia, went beyond conventional PR into customer segmentation, sales communications and the development of a more systematic approach to corporate and other target groups.
Our subsequent work with Debis Assekuranz Makler / DaimlerChrysler went further: CRM implementation, sales processes, staff training, market-entry communications and a business forum designed not simply to present a new company, but to put its management directly into a conversation with some of Russia’s largest prospective corporate clients.
It was an early lesson that has stayed with me throughout my career: communications work best when they are built around a business objective rather than treated as the objective themselves.
In 2003, Dars began working with Mammoet/Soymerstil following the extraordinary international visibility generated by the raising of the Kursk submarine.
The communications problem was unusual: awareness already existed. The challenge was to translate recognition into broader commercial relevance — positioning the company not simply through one famous engineering achievement, but through its capabilities in heavy transport, energy, petrochemicals and complex industrial projects.
In 2004, Dars developed the corporate identity for TransContainer at the beginning of its development as a distinct business. This was followed by international positioning in priority markets as the Trans-Siberian route was being developed as a competitive Asia–Europe container corridor.
From 2004 to 2010, I also worked closely with Far Eastern Transport Group (DVTG), initially in strategic communications and international positioning and subsequently as adviser to the Chairman and a member of the Board. The work expanded into investor relations and the development of transport infrastructure projects including Nakhodka, Zabaikalsk and Tuchkovo.
Our long-term work with Volga-Dnepr coincided with the development of AirBridgeCargo and the proposition of Russia as an air bridge between Europe and Asia.
Some of the most interesting work had little to do with conventional advertising. It involved using communications to address practical barriers affecting international transit — including electronic documentation and the predictability of technical stops. It reinforced another principle that became central to my work: communications can be a tool for solving business problems, not merely describing businesses.
This period also led to one of Dars Consulting’s most ambitious proprietary projects: Russia Day.
We had observed that companies could spend heavily on international exhibitions while doing little more than meeting people they already knew. Exhibition participation frequently lacked a strong agenda, new investment propositions or meaningful discussion of the issues affecting the industry.
Dars therefore created a different model: use the world’s major transport and logistics exhibitions as established meeting points, but build an independent business and investment agenda around them.
Between 2007 and 2008, Russia Day conferences were held in Munich, Shanghai, Paris and Seoul, bringing together hundreds of executives, investors, financial institutions and government representatives.
In Paris on 11 March 2008, Russia and Europe — A Single Logistics Space opened the SITL transport and logistics exhibition and attracted more than 700 delegates.
Dars created the concept and programme, attracted sponsors and delegates, and developed the platform commercially through sponsorship and registration revenues. Government representatives participated, but did not determine the agenda.
It was not simply event management. It was agenda creation, international positioning, investment relations and business development.
In 2010, Dars Consulting became a producer of Russia Business Report on BBC World News, sponsored by VTB Capital.
The year-long international television project presented regions, industries, companies and business leaders to a global audience. Alongside the programmes themselves, we researched audience response and perceptions in order to understand how international business audiences saw the market and how those perceptions could change.
The same question became part of my work around VTB Capital’s Russia Calling investment forum, where I moderated discussions about Russia through the eyes of international investors and the role perceptions play in investment decisions.
Following the Fukushima disaster, I initiated Dars Consulting’s cooperation with Rosatom, with our first international campaign beginning in March 2012.
Our starting point was deliberately broader than corporate promotion. Before talking about Rosatom, we wanted international audiences to better understand peaceful nuclear technology itself — its contribution to energy, medicine and everyday life.
Only subsequently did the communications evolve towards the corporate brand, including international visual communications and the “Energy & More” positioning.
This work developed over several years. In June 2015, I moderated a discussion at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum involving Sergey Kirienko, then head of Rosatom, and Yukiya Amano, Director General of the IAEA, on nuclear power’s place in the emerging global energy mix.
For me, this demonstrated another important principle: when confidence in an entire category has been damaged, promoting the company may not be the right first step. Sometimes you first have to rebuild understanding of the category itself.
Over the following decade, an increasing part of my work moved from individual corporate brands towards the positioning of countries, destinations, regions, infrastructure and national institutions.
Dars Consulting began working in Azerbaijan in 2015, with projects subsequently spanning investment, tourism, aviation, infrastructure, technology and sport.
Around the Baku 2015 European Games, we worked on international communications and subsequently developed visual campaigns including Team Azerbaijan — Ready to Win, built around the country’s investment proposition.
Our work over the following years involved Azerbaijan Airlines, Azerbaijan Tourism Board, Azercosmos and the Port of Baku.
For the Port of Baku, Dars worked on its brand, logo, visual identity, slogan and international positioning, complemented by international media and dedicated content presenting the port as an important part of the developing Europe–Asia transport corridor.
From 2021 to 2024, our cooperation with the Azerbaijan Tourism Board focused on international tourism positioning and reaching audiences with both the desire and the financial ability to travel.
The principle was simple but important: successful destination marketing is not about reaching the largest possible number of people. It is about reaching the right people with a distinctive and memorable proposition.
My work with Kazakhstan has developed over more than a decade and has become one of the broadest applications of the Dars approach — spanning country and regional positioning, tourism, education, national media and professional development.
Beginning in 2012, we worked on international communications presenting Kazakhstan and its capital to global audiences.
Other projects combined history, culture and contemporary country positioning — including Kazakhstan through the Eyes of Thomas and Lucy Atkinson, using the remarkable journey of the British explorers across the Kazakh Steppe to introduce the country through history, landscape and human stories.
An important subsequent area of our work has been regional tourism branding.
Dars Consulting has worked on positioning and international presentation for Mangystau, East Kazakhstan, Shymkent, Turkistan, Zhetysu and the Almaty Region.
The objective has never been simply to advertise a destination. We work to identify what makes each place distinctive, define the associations it can credibly own, translate its competitive advantages into a clear proposition and, crucially, visualise that proposition.
A Caspian and desert landscape, a mountain destination and an ancient Silk Road centre cannot be communicated through interchangeable tourism slogans.
I believe a national brand becomes stronger when its regions are distinctive rather than interchangeable.
My work in Kazakhstan has also extended into education and institutional reputation.
In 2019, I worked with Al-Farabi Kazakh National University on its international positioning and communications during a period in which the university was seeking greater global recognition and subsequently achieved a substantial improvement in its international rankings.
The experience demonstrated that academic reputation, like corporate reputation, cannot depend on a ranking table alone. An institution has to define its strengths, make its achievements visible and ensure that international academic and professional audiences understand what differentiates it.
Another long-term strand of my work in Kazakhstan has been my involvement with the Eurasian Media Forum.
Over many years, I have contributed to the Forum and delivered masterclasses for journalists and media professionals, sharing international broadcasting practices, strategic communications approaches and experience from global media. The broader objective has been to strengthen Kazakhstan’s international media presence and the professional capabilities required to sustain it.
This connects directly with my work with two of Kazakhstan’s major national broadcasters — Khabar Agency and Qazaqstan TV and Radio Corporation.
Our work has focused on the transformation and development of their media platforms, examining technologies, workflows, formats and professional practices used by leading international and European broadcasters and considering how relevant solutions can be implemented in Kazakhstan.
This has included modern production technologies, content development, multiplatform broadcasting, organisational processes and the transformation of traditional broadcasters into contemporary media organisations.
For me, this is another expression of a fundamental Dars principle: transformation does not happen because somebody writes a report about the future. It happens when strategy is translated into technology, processes, skills, content and action.
My cooperation with Uzbekistan began in April 2017, when I delivered a seminar in Tashkent on Strategic Communications and the Tourism Brand.
This was followed by work in Tashkent, Samarkand and Bukhara and, in November 2017, a memorandum signed in London with Uzbektourism during World Travel Market.
What began with tourism branding developed into a long-term programme of international positioning, visualisation, BBC campaigns, branded and editorial content, professional training and projects across tourism, culture, technology, sport and national development.
The objective was never simply to produce attractive films.
It was to develop a system: identify Uzbekistan’s distinctive competitive advantages, translate them into a recognisable visual proposition, create content capable of competing internationally and deliver it to carefully selected audiences — not simply to as many people as possible, but to people with the interest, influence and resources to travel.
In 2023, I received Uzbekistan’s Turizm fidoyisi award in recognition of my contribution to the development and international promotion of tourism.
The work has also included repeated seminars, lectures and professional programmes designed to help develop local capabilities in strategic communications, tourism branding and international media.
After more than 25 years, the sectors, countries and technologies have changed enormously. The underlying objective of my work has not.
I want to create strong, positive and lasting associations around companies, countries, regions and ideas among the audiences that matter to them.
But associations are not created by slogans alone.
We work through the complete chain: understanding the business or institutional objective; identifying genuine competitive advantages; defining target audiences; developing the positioning; deciding what associations need to be created; visualising those ideas; selecting the right platforms; producing the content; implementing the strategy; and studying how audiences respond.
We don’t just write concepts. We implement them.
And I increasingly believe that visualisation is not decoration added after strategy. It is part of strategy itself.
Facts and figures remain fundamental. But people do not make decisions on facts alone.
Financial markets move on expectations. Investors commit capital partly on their view of what a business or market can become. Travellers choose places they can imagine themselves experiencing. Partners choose organisations whose future they understand and trust.
In other words, perceptions of tomorrow influence decisions made today. That is where I see the role of Dars Consulting.
If you are working on the international positioning of a company, country, region or institution — or facing a business challenge where communications, reputation, investment relations or visualisation could make a difference — I would be very interested to hear about it.
Some of the most interesting projects in my career have started with a conversation rather than a formal brief. If you have an idea, a challenge or an ambition that you would like to discuss, please use the form below to tell me a little about it.
I read every enquiry personally and will be happy to explore whether my experience and Dars Consulting could be useful to you.
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