Arena

Arena is a full-service advertising agency that is part of ADV, one of Russia’s largest advertising groups. Arena combines expertise across media, digital and creative to come up with a unique and unified strategic approach for each stage of company development. The agency’s team aggregates the expertise, technology and pricing conditions of the entire holding, which makes it possible to promptly evaluate the effectiveness of specific media to optimise processes and achieve the clients’ business objectives in the market.

The team

Oleg Leshchuk

President

Oleg’s career in advertising began in 1992 when he successfully launched the project Subculture on the RTR TV channel. In 1994, Oleg Leshchuk and his business partner Oleg Povarov established the agency Magic Box. In 2008, it was merged with the Arena agency network to form Arena Magic Box, which became part the of the Havas international network. Oleg has been President and a shareholder of Arena agency since 2008. He holds an EXMBA-17 degree from Skolkovo Business School and a Digital MBA degree from Mail.ru Group.

Ruslan Samaev

CEO of Arena

Ruslan has been working in the Russian marketing industry for more than 20 years. He joined ADV Group in 2003 and for several years served as Development Director of MPG agency (presently Havas Media). He became CEO of Arena in 2008. Ruslan has wide experience of working with many categories and clients, such as Evalar, Lenta, Sovcombank, Rostelecom, Dr.Theiss, Valenta, Akrikhin, and many others.

Maria Kozhevnikova

Director for Business Development of Arena

Maria Kozhevnikova has now been involved in branding and promotion strategy development for Russian and international brands for more than 20 years. Maria is an expert in the area of business and art collaborations where she sees great potential for advertising content development. She began her path in the creative industry back in 2001 to become one of the first employees of Arena Magic Box (Arena) agency. The key principle of her business practice is a focus on the client's business result and implementation of out-of-the-box solutions. Maria’s main hobby is the development and strategic comprehension of cultural projects. Her interest in modern art has grown into a real project: in 2024 she participated in establishing the Leshchuk Foundation to support modern art—in collaboration with Oleg Leshchuk, a collector and President of Arena Agency. Maria has contributed to a number of wins at leading international festivals, including Silver Mercury, NPBK, and many more.

Evgeny Romanov

Commercial Director of Arena

Evgeny Romanov first studied at Lomonosov Moscow State University, then at Moscow Aviation Institute. He has more than 17 years of experience in the industry. In 2008, still a student, he began his career at MPG, then part of ADV Group. After some time, Arena Agency was established, and Evgeny became one of its first employees. He began his career at Arena as an assistant to the Department of TV Media Buys. Evgeny now works as Arena's Commercial Director.

Aleksandr Nerush

Creative Director of Arena

Aleksandr Nerush has been employed in the advertising industry for more than 20 years. A graduate of Moscow State Pedagogical University's Faculty of History, he continued his education to do a post-graduate course in social psychology. He began his career as a manager at the branding agency Depot WPF. After a few years in client service, Aleksandr retrained to become a creator. From brand development, he moved to communications creative as a copywriter at the Magic Box Agency, where he first became head of the creative group and then the Creative Director. When Arena merged with Magic Box, Aleksandr became head of Arena’s Creative Department. Since then, he has worked with such brands as Sberbank, Rostelecom, Gazprom Neft, Miratorg, Sovcombank, Khalva, Teva, President, Galbani, Parmalat, Kercher, Ritter Sport, EcoCulture, Ecomilk, Myasnitsky Ryad, and many more.