Kazakhstan
Madina Khamrayeva, Almaty
Head of Project and Events Department at Visit Almaty.
Madina was born in Almaty, Kazakhstan. She worked in marketing in the banking sector for five years and took part in conducting the Opening and Closing Ceremonies at the 28th Winter Universiade 2017 in Almaty.
Currently, Madina is working on the development of event tourism in Almaty.
Maira Izmaylova, Almaty
Director of the FUNK Event Agency.
Maira Izmaylova was born in 1976 in Kostanay, Kazakhstan. She graduated from the Kazakh Academy of Architecture, majoring in Advertising Design.
Her career has covered:
- graphic designer for Randa Production (Almaty, 2003‒2004);
- art director at the Magic Box agency (Moscow, 2004‒2006);
- art director at the Atalanta producing agency (Almaty, 2006‒2008);
- organiser of the FORE eco-ethno festival (2009‒2016);
- organiser and director of the Astana Art Fest international multicultural open air festival (2015‒2017).
Since 2016, she has also been the organiser and director of the Almaty Art Energy festival and was engaged in the creation of the festival concept and identity, the organisation of an advertising campaign, the search for financial and barter partners.
Nadezhda Selunskaya, Kostanay
Young Journalist School.
From early age, Nadezhda's works were published in the children's regional newspaper Green Apple. She was a freelance writer for Kostanai and Kostanai News newspapers and a trainee reporter in the news department of Kazakhstan-Kostanay TV channel.
Nadezhda graduated from music school, majoring in piano. She further graduated from the Kostanay Engineering Economic University, majoring in Economics. In 2010‒2012, she held the position of regional press attaché to the Black Star Inc. record company. In 2013, she was a criminal reporter, and later she was offered the position of assistant editor of a popular talk show at Channel One. Since 2014, she has been the talk show editor at Russia 1 channel. Later, she worked with the Domashniy TV channel, where she produced the Rublevo Biryulyovo show. At present, she runs Young Journalist School in Kostanay and plans to create an authorial TV show.
Natalya Livinskaya, Almaty
Head of the Centre of Urban Science.
Natalya graduated from the Kazakh-German University with a Major in Political Science. In her third year of study, she became a UNICEF facilitator working with adolescents, following which Natalya founded a non-governmental youth organisation whose projects involved young citizens of Almaty in the public life of the city.
Natalya has initiated the establishment of a national organisation Zharasym – the youth wing of the Assembly of People of Kazakhstan, and is a member of the Council of Businesswomen at the National Chamber of Entrepreneurs Atameken. She was also a member of the Community Council of Almaty.
Olga Baturina, Almaty
Professor of the Visual Arts History and Theory Department at the T.K. Zhurgenov Kazakh National Academy of Arts.
Olga is a co-developer of the Concept of Cultural Policy (2014) which was the first cultural concept in the history of Kazakhstan.
Olga Baturina headed the Visual Arts History and Theory Department, was the first head of the Research and Practical Centre for Postgraduate Education at the T.K. Zhurgenov Kazakh National Academy of Arts, where, thanks to her efforts, the Art Dissertations Board was opened, as well as the first Centre for Doctoral Training in Art.
Olga Baturina has devoted her research to the Kazakh visual arts, their study, interpretation and presentation. She considered these topics in her monograph named Landscape Painting of Kazakhstan and in more than 60 publications in various Kazakhstan and foreign research editions.
Olga Sultanova, Almaty
Director of the Otkroveniye (Revelation) International Festival of Performing Arts.
In 2011, Olga graduated from St. Petersburg Humanitarian University of Trade Unions, majoring in Marketing Communications in Social and Cultural Environment, although she had been working in the field of bank advertising and PR, and implementing PR projects in the oil and gas sector since 2008.
Beginning in 2012, she has engaged in designing and implementing social and cultural events, in particular in theatre.
Today, Olga is a theatre producer, director of the Otkroveniye festival, the only international festival of performing arts in Kazakhstan; a project manager, and consultant for the promotion of social and cultural projects.
In 2015, Olga completed a year-long producer training course at the Chekhov Moscow Art Theatre (with staging two performances as part of the international project named “For the first time in Spain, performances in Russian”).
Olga Veselova, Almaty
Deputy Director of the Eurasian Cultural Alliance public association.
Olga has a Master's Degree in Philosophy of Art. From 2004 to 2010, she studied philosophy at the al-Farabi Kazakh National University and subsequently came to the conclusion that the essence of philosophy is to get used to the idea that everything in the world is ambiguous, temporary, relatively and constantly changing.
Over the past four years, she has been organising and conducting contemporary art events all over the world. Her projects are spread over not only Kazakhstan, Russia and Ukraine, but also Italy, France and Switzerland. Currently, Olga is the leader of the ARTBAT FEST contemporary art festival in Almaty. In addition, she co-founded the ARTPOINT public cultural space (2015). Since 2016, Olga has been an author for the Central Asian Journal of Arts Research.
In 2017, she was a consultant to the Astana EXPO 2017 International Exhibition.
Pavel Koktyshev, Almaty
CEO of MOST Business Incubator.
Pavel is an entrepreneur, a venture investor, a TV presenter, a public figure, the co-founder and CEO of MOST Business Incubator. He graduated from Suleyman Demirel University, Stanford University, University Fellowship Programme.
Pavel is a speaker and a moderator at many prestigious conferences in Kazakhstan and abroad, a consultant and a manager of international and national projects for the development of entrepreneurship. He conducts training in leadership, project management, design thinking, social entrepreneurship, fundraising, business modelling and others.
