zero sum: the arc of international business in russia

When the hammer and sickle came down in late 1991, Russia’s feverish new market opened for business. From banking to breweries, sectors emerged out of nowhere, in a country that had never had a functioning economy. For the next three turbulent decades, a wild, proto-capitalist free-for-all transformed Russian society.

Then, in 2022, Putin launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The market started to collapse; Western firms fled Moscow’s skyscrapers. No country this large had ever transformed itself as dizzyingly as 1990s Russia--now, just as dramatically, it was over. The intervening decades had seen phenomenal successes and crushing failures; the creation and destruction of enormous fortunes. How did it all happen?

Zero Sum brings to life the complex, vivid color of one of the greatest experiments in the history of global commerce. What have businesses learnt--or failed to learn--from this adventure, both about Russia and about dynamics between countries and companies in the face of relentless change?

Charles Hecker has spent forty years travelling and working in the Soviet Union and Russia. He has worked as a journalist and a geopolitical risk consultant, and has lived in Miami, Moscow and London. A fluent Russian speaker, he holds degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard University.