Unsung Hero – Ms Yana Krutoyarskaya

Ms Yana’s heritage is a mixture of Greek, Ukrainian and Russian. Likewise, her skills and talents are also diverse. Ms Yana is a devoted mother, avid green tea drinker, reformed smoker, talented Mathematician and always perfectly dressed for any occasion.

Ms Yana has two siblings, the talented Inna her older sister and the adventurous Michael her younger brother. From a young age, Ms Yana wanted to become a Doctor. However, as she was a talented Pianist and won many competitions, her parents wanted her to pursue a career in music. Ms Yana’s favourite musician is Claude Debussy and she distracts herself with classical music when she is craving nicotine.

Ms Yana was also very talented at Math’s, Physics and ICT at school. Therefore, her dream of becoming a Doctor was achievable. But the thought of a simple mistake having lifelong repercussions for patients, frightened her and made her reconsider. She undertook a Bachelors in International Economy followed by a Diploma in Accounting from the Association of Accountants. Her parents then encouraged her to travel and work abroad like her elder sister in Russia.

However, Ms Yana was content in Tashkent and never had an appetite for working and living abroad like her siblings.
Yet Ms Yana was passionate about challenging herself, working on new projects and coming up with new initiatives to add value for her employers. She did much of this during her career starting with her first job was as an accounts and contracts coordinator for a law firm. She then worked for the joint venture UzConsult Service (German and Uzbek), as a Consultant focusing on procurement contracts, tender commissioning, quality control and market research to check reputation and pricing of suppliers. 

In 2008, whilst on holiday with her younger brother in Israel, Ms Yana met Mr Ruslan, who was also travelling there with his sister and friends. When they returned to Tashkent, Ms Yana regularly met up with all the young people who were on the tour together. In this way, she was charmed by Mr Ruslan and they began dating. At the same time she joined SGS, the world’s largest testing, inspection and certification company as a Coordinator for inspections in the oil, gas, chemicals and minerals sector.

Ms Yana and Mr Ruslan then got married and her life changed due to motherhood in 2012, when their son Mark was born. Whilst on maternity leave, Ms Yana was requested to audit the British School of Tashkent and support the Principal Mr David Kirkham. This was a huge project, which would make a difference to the development of children (something close to Ms Yana’s heart) and therefore she accepted the role. Hence, Mark was enrolled part-time into the kindergarten and looked after by his grandmothers the rest of the time. Meanwhile, Ms Yana was busy ensuring the school had the correct accreditations, licenses, processes, policies and systems to ensure compliance and run smoothly.

Ms Yana, worked for BST flexibly for 3 years and was then offered the Head of Administration role in 2015. Hence, she was responsible for Finance, Operations, Admissions, Business Development, IT, Facilities and HR. As BST was the only British school in the market, every initiative was pioneering – from the Cambridge and Edexcel accreditations, COBIS certification, dual Uzbek-British curriculums, catering contracts, transition from British Schools Foundation to Nord Anglia and associated branding, system and cultural changes. Over Ms Yana’s watch the school grew every year from 140 students in 2013 to over 600 in 2019.

Ms Yana’s purpose now is that Mark grows up as a happy, healthy, resilient and internationally minded person. Mark loves animals and recently convinced Ms Yana to allow him to have a dog – Rico. This was a big ask as Ms Yana suffers from hay fever and pet hairs as well as certain foods can set her off  – tomatoes, strawberries, almonds, chocolate and spices are a no. In her spare time Ms Yana loves listening to classical music and reading to destress. Her favourites are the Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy, short stories by O.Henry and the novels of Ernest Hemingway.