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“Zero Sum” is a smart, often colorful book, enlivened by the grim smirk of someone who has intimate knowledge of how the everyday Russian economy really works. Hecker witnessed most of the three-decade saga up close, as a reporter for The Moscow Times and then as a geopolitical risk consultant advising Americans and Europeans investing in Russia. He arrived from Miami in the mid-90s, on the heels of what Harvard Business Review lauded as “a liberal-market revolution.”
Owen Matthews, author, Overreach: The Inside Story of Putin and Russia's War Against Ukraine
'This is a magnificent book. A tour de force exploration of the rollercoaster story of Western capitalists and their misadventures in post-Communist Russia chronicling the hope, the naivety, the idealism, the greed and arrogance and folly in glorious, highly-readable detail. There has been no more thorough, moving or better-researched study of the epic cycle of the opening of Russia’s economy in a blaze of ill-founded optimism in the early 90s to its closing in bitter recrimination and conflict in the wake of Putin's invasion of Ukraine.'
Synopsis
When the hammer and sickle flag came down in late 1991, a feverish new market called Russia opened for business. From banking to breweries, entire sectors emerged out of nowhere, in a country that had never had a functioning economy. For the next three turbulent decades, a wild, proto-capitalist free-for-all transformed Russian society.
Then, in 2022, Putin launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The market started to collapse; Western firms fled Moscow’s skyscrapers. No country this large had ever transformed itself as dizzyingly as did Russia. Now, just as dramatically, it was over. The intervening decades saw phenomenal successes and crushing failures; the creation and destruction of enormous fortunes. How did it all happen?
Zero Sum brings to life the complex, vivid colour of one of the greatest experiments in the history of global commerce. What have businesses learnt—or failed to learn—from this adventure, both about Russia and about the dynamics between countries and companies in the face of relentless change?
Biography
Charles Hecker has spent forty years travelling and working in the Soviet Union and Russia. He has worked as a journalist at The Miami Herald and The Moscow Times, and as a geopolitical risk consultant at Control Risks, where he was a partner in the firm.
While at Control Risks, Charles helped dozens of leading, international companies invest safely in Russia and manage the dynamic array of risks the country presented as it developed as a market. From 2000 to 2008, he was the managing partner of Control Risks' Moscow office.
He is a regular contributor to Monocle Radio and has offered expert commentary on Times Radio, CNN, the BBC, CNBC and Bloomberg TV, among others.
A fluent Russian speaker, he holds an undergraduate degree in Russian and Soviet Studies from the University of Pennsylvania and a master’s degree from the Russian Research Center (now the Davis Center) at Harvard University. He has recently been accepted onto the advisory boards of UCL's SSEES, and Harvard's Davis Center.
Charles grew up in the Connecticut suburbs of New York City, with a brief stint in South Bend, Indiana. He has lived in Miami and Moscow, and currently resides in East London.
If you would like a copy of Charles' professional CV, please use the request form further below.
Photo: Larissa Kouznetsova
Upcoming and Past Events
09 Oct 2025, 18:30 – 20:30https://slaviccenter.osu.edu/events/global-Please join Ohio State's Center for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies, Center for International Business Education and Research and Risk Institute for the next installment in the Global Risk and Mitigation Series.
27 Sept 2025, 11:00 – 12:00Hereford, 8 St Owen's St, Hereford HR1 2PJ, UK
10 Apr 2025, 19:00 – 23:00New York, 15 Barclay St, New York, NY 10007, USA
28 Mar 2025, 19:00 – 23:00Cambridge, Massachusetts Hall, Cambridge, MA 02138, USAHosted by Cris Martin and Craig Kennedy
27 Mar 2025, 12:00 – 13:30New York, 420 W 118th St, New York, NY 10027, USAPlease join the Harriman Institute for a book talk by Charles Hecker. Moderated by Alexander Cooley.
20 Mar 2025, 10:00 – 12:00Washington, Army and Navy Club Building, 901 17th St NW, Washington, DC 20006, USA
07 Mar 2025, 19:00 – 23:00Miami, 300 S Biscayne Blvd, Miami, FL 33131, USA
06 Mar 2025, 18:00 – 20:30Coral Gables, 265 Aragon Ave, Coral Gables, FL 33134, USABooks & Books held an evening with Charles Hecker discussing Zero Sum: The Arc of International Business in Russia.
06 Mar 2025, 16:00 – 17:30Coral Gables, 5100 Brunson Dr, Coral Gables, FL 33146, USA
04 Mar 2025, 18:30 – 20:00Center for the Study of the Presidency a, 601 13th St NW Suite 940N, Washington, DC 20005, USAHosted by Joshua Huminski, 4 March, 2025
10 Feb 2025, 19:00 – 23:00Russia Institute, Strand, London WC2R 2LS, UK
21 Jan 2025, 18:30 – 21:30Frontline Club, London, 13 Norfolk Pl, Tyburnia, London W2 1QJ, UK
28 Nov 2024, 18:30 – 20:30Pushkin House and online, 5a Bloomsbury Square, London WC1A 2TA, UKCharles Hecker discussed his new book Zero Sum: The Arc of International Business in Russia (Hirst, 2024). Hecker explored the evolution of doing business in Russia, from communism to capitalism to collapse.
12 Nov 2024, 18:30 – 21:30 GMTLondon, 21 Kensington Park Rd, London W11 2EU, UKHurst Publishers launched Zero Sum at Daunt Books in Notting Hill at 18:30 on Tuesday, 12 November 2024, for the launch of my first book, Zero Sum: The Arc of International Business in Russia.
An independent publisher since 1969
Zero Sum is part of Hurst's New Perspectives on Eastern Europe and Eurasia series, edited by Dr. Ben Noble of UCL.
Zero Sum is published in the US by Oxford University Press.
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