Instructor

This series was created by Dr. Naira Velumyan, the Founder of the Academy of Social Competency, Ph.D. in Psychology, Forbes Councils Member, Registered Psychotherapist, International Speaker, Entrepreneur and Etiquette Expert. Dr. Velumyan owns several businesses, being self-employed since she was 23 years old. She was born in 1972 in the country that no longer exists, namely the Soviet Union, and lived in Moscow since her early childhood. This was a communist country where private businesses were illegal. In 1990, in one night, the Soviet Union fell apart, and Russia emerged as a new country. And in one night, people found themselves in a new “capitalist” society where everyone could run a business but nobody knew how. Dr. Velumyan path to learning how to run a business was from the scratch, through trials and errors. She started with two hardware stores, then opened a wholesale clothing company, and later a car repair service, followed by the small chroming factory. Furthermore, she got access to the available literature about business, graduated law school, received a second university education in psychology, obtained her doctorate degree and was even engaged in anti-crisis counselling of companies. Her experience developed step by step and through exploring effective business communications from different perspectives — as an owner who was involved in daily interactions with partners, clients and subordinates; as a psychologist who knew the basis of human’s psychology, behavior and motivation; and as an anti-crisis consultant whose experience grew tremendously due to feedback from all levels of corporate hierarchy. There was even a period when Dr. Velumyan taught human resources management at a university in Russia to young professionals, sharing her expertise in team building, conflict resolution strategies, motivation, corporate culture and negotiations.