18 March 2004 03:21
Expat Eager to Create Small Business Haven
Jamison Firestone's first impression of Russia when he visited the Soviet Union on a student program in the
summer of 1982 was: "Thank God I don't live here!" More than 20 years later he now calls Moscow home.
Firestone, 37, has his own businesses in Russia and is on the board of directors of the American Chamber of Commerce
in Russia, where he bangs the drum for the small-business sector.
"The most surprising thing that has happened to me is that I'm living here, and I'm living here by
choice," Firestone admits.
When he was in 10th grade, Firestone's father gave him an ultimatum: that he would only continue paying for
Firestone's education at a private high school in New York if Firestone studied Russian. The Soviet Union would
fall apart one day, he said, and he believed his son would be able to "make a lot of money" in a post-Soviet
Russia. Firestone reluctantly followed his father's advice, but he did not continue studying Russian in
college.
Years later, inspired by Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms, his interest in Russia was born again. While attending
Tulane Law School in Louisiana, he began sitting in on Russian language courses given at the nearby undergraduate
university.
After graduation from Tulane in 1991, Firestone says he did not face a difficult decision about his future. The
"evil empire" was falling apart by then, just as his dad had predicted, and Russia was a promising land of
opportunities.
While many of Firestone's law school friends thought he was "nuts" to just get on a plane and go, he
arrived in Moscow just one week after taking his New York State bar exam with little money and no idea what he was going
to do in Russia.
Within a year he had raised enough investment to launch his first business venture -- importing and selling used
American cars. At a time when customs duties for cars were nonexistent, it proved to be a lucrative enterprise, but as
soon as the new customs duties were adopted it became impossible to compete honestly with criminal groups, and the
venture was soon abandoned.
At the same time as his car business began to sputter, using all of his remaining assets -- $500 and a computer --
Firestone decided to start a company registration business.
"Many foreigners wanted to do business in Russia, but nobody understood the procedures. I actually happened to
be here as everything was created," Firestone says. "While in America, it would've taken me much longer
to become an expert, I became one here by virtue of being in the right place and in the right time. All the laws were
new. I, and everyone else, was kind of learning it all on the fly," he adds.
What started as a side venture soon became the full-fledged legal and audit firm Firestone Duncan Ltd. in a
prestigious location of central Moscow, with an affiliated office in Khabarovsk. The firm advises Russian and foreign
companies, including some of the Fortune 500, on Russian commercial law and taxes.
In 1998 one client asked Firestone to perform a due-diligence review of his agricultural production companies in
Krasnodar. It soon became apparent that the client did not own the companies and the companies owned almost nothing,
although there were millions of dollars of assets involved.
"We worked with him to gain control of all those companies and assets, and eventually my firm became a partner
in the venture," Firestone says. The business includes the only popcorn producer in Russia that produces about half
of all the popcorn consumed in the country, with the rest coming from abroad.
Today, with his business partners -- who include Jim Watkins, the inventor of microwave popcorn, who has invested
heavily in Russia -- he owns several agricultural ventures in Krasnodar. They have imported tractors and combine
harvesters to a 3,000-hectare farm and are introducing modern methods of farming. They also own a flour mill and a
beef-producing venture in Krasnodar and a potato seed laboratory in the Moscow region.
But perhaps Firestone's most ambitious project is fostering the development of a healthy small-business sector
in Russia. As co-chairman of AmCham's Enterprise Development Committee, he has for some time been engaged in
lobbying the Russian government for laws that would improve the business climate for the long-neglected small and
medium-sized business sector.
As part of his cause, he wrote the small-business section of the Russian-American Business Dialog report that got the
attention of presidents George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin at their Camp David meeting in September 2003.
When asked which of his hats he prefers to wear, Firestone says his lobbying hat probably fits best.
"Getting changes made in the law is more exciting and personally rewarding for everyone, just because of the
scale of its effect," he explains.
He is disappointed by some Russians' belief that they cannot change things for the better -- "a willingness
to accept the unacceptable," as he calls it.
"This attitude results in a lack of involvement. Sometimes outrage is good. Outrage leads to change," he
says.
.TX-..**********************************************
[The Moscow Times] |
RUSSIA IN FACTS
