Owners of Argonaut
Argonaut is owned by its founders, Caroline Beery, Richard Farkas and Andrey Jichev. All the owners are actively involved in the development of the company.
Caroline Beery has worked in the field of leadership development and consulting since 1991 and was the driving force behind the blended model of intercultural competence development on which the original Argonaut was built. She also has long experience with psychometric assessment and online learning. The idea for Argonaut formed in the year 2000 when Caroline and her business partner Maria Jicheva decided to take their intercultural training business online.
Dr Andrey Jichev worked as a diplomat and in a variety of international institutions, including the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. He lectures in cross-cultural management and international negotiations at Regents University, International marketing at IES London and international business at BU London. His specialist areas are cross-cultural management and marketing as well as international relations. It was Andrey’s wife, the former SIETAR Europa President Maria Jicheva who led the founding of Argonaut with Andrey. Andrey maintained an involvement and became a full member of the Argonaut Board in 2015, inheriting Maria’s shareholding in Argonaut when Maria lost her battle with cancer in that year.
Richard Farkas brought his knowledge of e-learning to complete the original founding partnership of Argonaut in 2001. Richard has been in the management of startups from his teens through his twenties and thirties and took on the position of CEO of Argonaut in 2015. He has worked deeply in higher education, business services, heavy industry, tech and has experienced a variety of other industries through diverse professional roles including HR, marketing, training, communications and design. His multi-disciplinary approach put him in the role of planning and technology for the early days of Argonaut. He has taken voluntary roles in projects for SIETAR Europa and SIETAR Global. He has a passion for analytics, online communications and content management and professional interest in competence development as a member of the Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development.