Sergey Ryazansky – Keynote Speaker

Sergey Ryazansky is a Russian cosmonaut, hero of the Russian Federation who performed 2 space flights, lasting in total 306 days.

Ryazansky was born in Moscow, Soviet Union. He is the grandson of Mikhail Ryazansky, chief Soviet guidance designer of the Sputnik era. Sergey Ryazansky graduated from the Moscow State University, Biochemistry faculty and got his Ph.D. in “Physiology” and “Aviation and space medicine”. After college he began working as a researcher at the Institute of Biomedical Problems.

Sergey Ryazansky was selected as a research and test cosmonaut in 2003. He completed training in 2005. In 2007 he participated in a 105-day mission as commander of the crew in the Mars 500 program , it was a psychosocial isolation experiment conducted by Russia, the European Space Agency and China, in preparation for an unspecified future human spaceflight to the planet Mars. Sergey Ryazansky launched to the International Space Station on his first spaceflight on board the Soyuz TMA-10M spacecraft in 2013 alongside Russian cosmonaut, Oleg Kotov and American astronaut Michael S. Hopkins. He became the first flight engineer without engineering education. He performed one of the longest outer space missions in the history of the Soviet and Russian astronautics, that lasted 8 hours 7 minutes. Together with Oleg Kotov they became two Russian cosmonauts who carried an unlit Olympic torch on a symbolic spacewalk relay for the 2014 Olympic Games. His second flight happened in 2017.

In 2015 he graduated with honors from the master’s program of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. And in 2016 he became Chairman of the Russian movement of schoolchildren – government project to educate and develop Russian children. Sergey Ryazansky is the author of four books: “Amazing Earth” and “Amazing Earth. Planet of thousand colors” which compile his best pictures of our planet made from ISS, “How to hammer a nail in space” that answers most popular questions about astronautics and “Space leadership”, his first English book that comes out early 2020.

In 2014 Sergey became a motivational speaker, his keynotes are focused on leadership, motivation, team building, working in stressful conditions. All examples are based on his unique experiences: being selected and trained to be an astronaut, living and working in multi-cultural teams on the ISS, performing spacewalks, dealing with crises. With his keynotes he made over 1000 appearances in Russia and abroad. He spoke for Mars, Abbott, Procter&Gamble, Cargill, Microsoft, Hay Group, Salym Petroleum, Metro C&C, ВАТ, Johnson&Johnson, Roche, Helix, Skolkovo business school, Sberbank and many others. All his lectures include the photos and video footage made during the training, living and working on the ISS, outer space missions, debriefs upon return to Earth and so on.