Throughout 2023, on the newspaper’s website in the “Opinions” section, leading experts, analysts, top managers of companies in the author’s columns talked about their vision of the situation in various sectors of the economy and socio-political life not only in St. Petersburg, but also all over the Northwestern Federal District, shared their analyses and forecasts. At the end of the year, the editorial board of the Vedomosti North-West business newspaper formed the shortlist of the most widely read author’s columns related to key areas of the District’s economy. The award jury selected the most interesting texts, the authors of which were awarded in the Columnist of the Year nomination. The winners of another nomination – the Expert of the Year – were the experts of the newspaper’s materials, which collected the largest number of reader views in 2023.

The award ceremony was held under the auspices of the 25th anniversary of the Vedomosti business newspaper to be celebrated by the media holding this year.

“The Vedomosti has been continuously developing for 25 years. Today we have many ways of interacting with our readers and newsmakers. Besides the website and the newspaper, these are various events, in particular, the Vedomosti Sailing Business Regatta, the Impulse National Award, and now the St. Petersburg Opinion Leader Award has emerged on this list, which took place for the first time this year,” told us the publisher of the Vedomosti newspaper, CEO of the Business News Media company Mikhail Nelyubin.

According to Irina Yarovikova, Editor-In-Chief of the Vedomosti North-West, the name of the award and its key meanings did not appear by chance.

“Our newspaper has always sought to become a public platform for business representatives, analysts, experts in various fields to express their position, share their vision of the situation and make forecasts, even if their opinion does not coincide with the position of the editorial board. For this purpose, we have the special section “Opinions”, which is why we decided to name our award “Opinion Leader”. At present, many media hold their own awards and contests, and we wanted to offer the expert community a new interesting format of interaction. And according to the feedback from our newsmakers and readers, we did it,” she commented.

The start of the Vedomosti’s own business award in St. Petersburg is a new milestone in the development of this business newspaper, emphasizes Aleksandr Shchelkanov, CEO of the Baltic Business Media company,

“We went offline with a big business event. We face large-scale challenges related to work in the North-West, and we plan to develop events in the club-story format, as there remains high demand for networking in the business sector. And for a business newspaper, it means involving new speakers and getting high-quality content.”

“In my opinion, the Vedomosti is the standard of good-quality journalism. A barometer of business activity. One of those newspapers, which business turns to as a source of reliable information.
As a member of the jury board, I enjoyed great intellectual and aesthetic pleasure when evaluating expert columns. In-depth analysis, texture, language – everything is at the highest level. Choosing the best of the best was really difficult. I am also grateful for the award in the nomination “The Most Cited Expert in Hospitality”. This achievement is an immediate consequence of our industry’s significance, recognition of its system-forming role at the state level,” said Sergey Voronkov