There is no official information about the resignation of the current CEO Dmitry Osipov, but his farewell meeting with the team is already scheduled for the beginning of this week. It is expected that Osipov may return to the post of CEO of Uralkali, take one of the leading positions in the structure of Rostec or a higher status position.
The change of the general director of the enterprise will be the fourth in the last three years. The personnel reshuffle in the corporation began in May 2020, when Mikhail Voevodin, who had been in charge of VSMPO-Avisma for 11 years, left the post. The official reason was the crisis – in connection with the pandemic, the production plan for 2020 decreased by 32 percent. The wage fund, non-core and investment expenses were reduced. Later, a criminal case was initiated against Vojvodin under the article on abuse of power.
The new head of the corporation was Maxim Kuzyuk, who held his position for only two months. In July 2020, he was replaced by Sergey Stepanov. But the latter also resigned six months later. There were rumors that the main owner of the corporation, Mikhail Shelkov, was dissatisfied with the effectiveness of the anti-crisis measures taken by the temporary workers. The official reasons for their departure were much milder. In particular, Stepanov told the team that he wanted to spend more time with his family and newborn daughter.
Owners and owners of the enterprise pinned great hopes on Dmitry Osipov, who took the post of CEO on January 11, 2021. Before moving to Verkhnyaya Salda, he headed Uralkali for seven years and had experience in managing large chemical and mining companies listed in Moscow and London. Osipov was tasked with maintaining a high level of competitiveness of the corporation, ensuring its consistently high value for shareholders.
The main test for the new management team was the tightening of the West’s sanctions policy towards Russia.
In March 2022, under pressure from the US State Department, Boeing suspended purchases from VSMPO. In December 2022, Airbus Defense & Space CEO Michael Shellhorn announced his intention to abandon Russian titanium. Against this background, the corporation had to look for new markets and get involved in domestic aircraft construction projects.
Osipov’s team has achieved significant success. According to the preliminary estimate at the disposal of Oktagon, in 2022 the corporation received a record profit of about 23 billion rubles – a third higher than a year earlier. If in 2020 the company was forced to transfer part of the staff to part-time employment, then last year it faced the opposite problem – a shortage of workers.
The search for specialists in working professions for VSMPO was taken up by PromSila LLC. Employees for work on a rotational basis were hired by him in other cities. According to Oktagon sources, about a thousand vacancies were filled. The flow of workers who are not sufficiently familiar with the specifics of production has turned into new problems. The risk of random people getting into the workshops has increased. This is evidenced by the screenshots of the list of sanctions for shift workers posted on the Internet. For example, the appearance at the workplace in a state of alcoholic or drug intoxication threatens with a fine of 5 thousand rubles and dismissal. A possible violation of safety rules could be one of the reasons for the fatal accidents that occurred in 2022-2023, in each of which workers hired by PromSila suffered.
To motivate existing personnel, VSMPO management increased employee benefits on March 1, 2023. For the main production personnel, the growth amounted to 6 percent, for a number of categories of working specialties – 40 percent. The company allocated an additional 1.5 billion rubles for these purposes.
Oktagon’s sources report that CEO Dmitry Osipov raised the issue of a more substantial wage indexation – from 20 percent and above. However, the proposal was not approved by the beneficiary of the corporation, Mikhail Shelkov.
At the same time, in April the next stage of optimization of administrative personnel started at the enterprise. The reform affected only the inhabitants of Verkhnyaya Salda – this fact was considered discrimination by the native townspeople. Photos of leaflets pasted at the plant with appeals to HR managers with the call “Get out of our plant and out of the city!” began to circulate on social networks. One of them was fired the other day.
The company remained neutral in the conflict caused by plans to build a silicon plant LLC Silarus in the SEZ “Titanium Valley” (part of the Omsk group “Titan” of industrialist Mikhail Sutyaginsky. – τ.). Local residents opposed the project due to fears that the launch of the enterprise will negatively affect the environment. For the titanium corporation, the new plant will become a competitor in hiring highly qualified personnel.
But the detachment from the protests taking place in the city did not save the Osipov team from political blows. The first of these was the recent appointment of and. O. the head of Verkhnyaya Salda, Alexander Maslov, who is not related to VSMPO (earlier, the mayor was either a representative of the corporation or a person agreed with it). The second is the arrival in the city of Mstislav Pismenkov, a former employee of Znak.com.
Oktagon’s sources believe that the journalist came to Verkhnyaya Salda at the request of the former head of the Internet publication Aksana Panova.
Now she oversees a campaign to popularize the project to build a silicon plant. The arrival and subsequent detention of Pismenkov cast a shadow on VSMPO-Avisma as a city-forming enterprise that shares responsibility for the situation in the municipality.
There are several candidates for the post of acting head of the corporation, one of them is Dmitry Masodi, who currently holds the position of First Deputy General Director for Economics, Finance, Strategy and Development. With a high degree of probability appointed acting. he will be, but the sources of the Octagon do not exclude that this decision may become temporary. The fact that Masodi has relatives abroad will make it difficult for him to gain access to state secrets, which is mandatory for the general director of VSMPO-Avisma.
The competent structures may also raise questions about some points in the biography of Dmitry Masodi. In 2010-2011, he worked as a lead consultant for the Cyprus branch of Deloitte & Touche Regional Consulting Services Limited. It is part of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited, one of the Big Four accounting firms, and has played a significant role in establishing the dependence of Russian financial and industrial groups on Western markets.
Prior to joining VSMPO in 2014–2018, Masodi held the positions of Senior Consultant and Project Manager at Boston Consulting Group LLC, founded by the British The Boston Consulting Group (Moscow) Limited and The Boston Consulting Group Limited. During their activity in Russia, the latter have not only accumulated a large amount of information about the largest domestic enterprises and the economy of the Russian Federation as a whole, but can also retain influence on their former managers.
If approved for the post of CEO, Dmitry Masodi may also face the need to change the team. Many current top managers of VSMPO-Avisma came to the corporation together with Dmitry Osipov and, most likely, will follow him to another structure.
Octagon sent a request to the press service of the VSMPO-Avisma corporation. At the time of publication of the material, the editorial office did not receive a response.