Leading by Example | Georgi Malchev
By: Mihaela Miteva
Tags: Mentorship, Leadership, Charity, Profile

Georgi looks down at his hands and starts laughing at my question about what makes him angry. “Actually, I think I’ve only yelled at people at work twice. And they were people who, in my opinion, led the others in the wrong direction. I am very sorry that I did it and I am not proud of it at all,” he says. He thinks that whether or not you get angry depends solely on you. Georgi believes in the idea of giving feedback instead, what you do with that feedback in the future, and that you have always done your best from your point of view.

“Lead by Example! Mentor. Entrepreneur. Lecturer. Teacher. Parent.” This is how Georgi Malchev describes himself on his award-winning website. Georgi graduated from the first cohort of the Executive MBA program at AUBG in 2004, only second in his class. Currently, he is a managing partner at the digital marketing agency Xplora, which consists of a team of 41 people. Georgi is also the vice president of the AUBG Alumni Association.

Georgi mentoring. Photo courtesy: Georgi Malchev

What helps Georgi with his emotions is NLP’s model that the only thing you can plan is the reaction. That is, you want a certain reaction, and you know how you can achieve it. “I believe that one really should set an example. And when people expect me to get angry, I use the situation to communicate to them why you shouldn’t be angry and how you should behave as a leader.” Georgi thinks it’s important to realize that the person you may be angry with at work is someone you’re responsible for developing and someone who has more to learn. He says that takes a lot of the anger away. This is one of his various methods when it comes to being a better leader.

When Georgi sets his sights on something, he works very hard towards achieving it. He says he enrolled in AUBG because he was pushed into it. He first visited the university for a lecture by the then Economy Minister Nikolay Vasilev. He says he was impressed by how cool and visibly motivated the people were, by the extracurricular life and the international environment at AUBG. “And I said to myself: ‘Wow, how did I miss out on this?’,” he says. Back then Georgi was working at the Ministry of Economics and Vasilev insisted that he and four other people enroll in the Executive MBA program.

Once he found out about the program and the people studying there, he put a lot of effort into getting in. “Zhoro [Georgi’s nickname] is a very consistent person, whether personally or professionally, he follows a certain path. He is also very persistent, pursues his goals, achieves them not at any cost, but only when they really bring some value,” says Vanya Ananieva, a long-term friend and collaborator of his. Georgi was in the top 3% in the world on his Graduate Management Admission Test and managed to graduate from AUBG magna cum laude, while still working a 12-hour day, six days a week, at the Ministry of Economics.

In the past decade, Georgi has been teaching classes in marketing, communications, and advertising in a few Bulgarian universities. His face lights up as he starts to talk about his teaching career. It’s something he’s very passionate about. He first began teaching because he believed he had valuable knowledge to give and the desire to do it. According to the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator, Georgi is a Consul, and he thinks that has a big influence on his life. “Consuls are people who think it’s up to them to make the world a better place, that it’s up to them to put in more effort.” Georgi says his profile fits in with him being able to recognize teaching as something he wants to achieve and something that meets his values.

Georgi and Vanya during a charity initiative. Photo Courtesy: Predai Natatak Facebook Page

Making the world a better place is something Georgi strongly believes in. That’s why he organizes numerous charity and volunteer events and donates. Georgi and Ananieva founded the organization Predai Natatak, which they use to help people in need, be it with food or other supplies. Georgi is also a part of the campaign Caps for Future, the purpose of which is to collect bottle caps and use the money to buy equipment for smaller hospitals. “These are my values; I can do it and I will do it. I am responsible and that’s why I participate in various initiatives.” Georgi also tries to always maintain a positive outlook on life. He remembers one time when Lazar Radkov, founder of Caps for Future and Live to Lift, had teased him about something, and Georgi replied cheerfully, as he usually does. Radkov then jokingly said, “Hey, I hate this positive attitude you have towards everything.”

He’s not only dedicated to making the world a better place but bettering himself, as well. He tracks his positive habits every day and always sets aside time to work out. About eight years ago, he was looking through self-improvement blogs and learned about improvisational theater. Since then, he’s been doing improv twice a week and it’s helped him develop over the years. “I am generally quite cooperative, but before I went to improv theater, I hadn’t realized how much I think about things in advance and predefine them. And in improv, if you think things through, if you tell the other person everything, nothing is going to happen. Since then, I work much better in a team. Some people you can learn from and others you can help grow.”

Georgi at improv theater. Photo Courtesy: Georgi Malchev.

Georgi is also very dedicated to his family life. Ananieva thinks that he is the dream father because even though he’s very busy, he still makes time for his family, his wife and two sons. “He constantly educates his children, firstly through setting a personal example, secondly through various initiatives,” she says. “I really believe in the concept of leading by example. I think it is up to me to pass on the right values and principles to my children,” Georgi says. He wants his children to learn how to be responsible for themselves and their actions, as well as be able to take responsibility for other people.

This year he’s focused on helping his oldest son, who is 16, as he is interested in entrepreneurship and wants to have his own company one day. “This is the most unusual project for me so far, not to be the one leading things, but rather to mentor him in his own direction, in his own way of development. I think that the fact that I have mentored other people before helps, but here you have full responsibility and you have to figure out where, when, and how much to do.”

Georgi hopes to be known as an example of how you should treat others and how to be part of a team. He also wants to be remembered as an example of how to be a good parent, and how to make the world a better place in your own way. In his case, with teaching and charity initiatives. As Ananieva says, “There are people who set an example for others, and Zhoro is one of them.”