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Boris Lelchitski
With over forty years of experience in the sports industry, Boris Lelchitski has established himself one of the top sports agents internationally. In 1996, Boris founded Sports International Group (SIG), and has since managed the careers of numerous high-profile professional women’s basketball players.
Prior to founding SIG, Boris spent the majority of his career coaching in Russia and the United States. Boris spent three years as Head Women’s Basketball Coach and Physical Education Instructor at Heathwood Hall Academy in Columbia, South Carolina. Before coaching at Heathwood, Boris coached boys and girls basketball at Cardinal Newman High School. While in Russia, Boris served as Head Coach for Euroleague competitor, Spartak, St. Petersburg for eleven years.
Boris holds a master’s degree in basketball coaching from Lesgaft Academy of Physical Education in St. Petersburg, Russia and an associate’s degree in Sports Administration from the University of South Carolina.
Carolina Blanco
Carolina Blanco brings several years of experience in women’s basketball operations to Sports International Group (SIG). Carolina is a former athlete and has an extensive background in sports industry operations. Since 2003, Carolina has been Executive Director of SIG, serving in broad range of essential capacities including client relations, sports organization liaison, travel coordinator, and office manager, among others.
While at SIG, Carolina has served as counselor and primary liaison between Hoops for Africa, a non-profit sports initiative promoting HIV/AIDS education, awareness, and prevention in Africa. Carolina was instrumental in partnering SIG and Hoops for Africa in 2005, when she assisted in leading a group of professional athletes, that included SIG clients, to Kenya.
Prior to joining Boris at SIG, Carolina was Director of Women’s Basketball Operations at the University of Pittsburgh where she was the point person for travel, per diem, equipment, budgeting, and personnel support. Carolina also served as a Media Intern for the Washington Mystics and as a Student Manager for the Duquesne Women’s Basketball team.
Carolina holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology with a minor in communication from Duquesne University.
Zoya Pavlovskaya
When Zoya Pavloskaya left her family and friends in her hometown of St. Petersburg, Russia and headed for the United States, she was nervous yet excited. Now, almost four years later, her hard work, dedication, involvement, friendly personality and ambition have paid off. Zoya has excelled throughout her years at college and now has a degree from Saint Joseph’s University.
Upon completion of one year of college in Russia, Zoya had the desire to transfer to an American university. Zoya found herself looking at Saint Joseph’s University since it has a good relationship between academics and basketball. She was further attracted to the school since she wished to be in a city, yet at a smaller school due to her apprehension that she didn’t know English very well when initially coming to the States. After weighing her options, Zoya made the wise decision to attend Saint Joe’s and has been extremely happy with her choice!
When Zoya first arrived, she was told, “Saint Joe’s is famous for marketing. Take marketing!” Zoya then decided to focus on an international marketing major since she thought it would help put to use her knowledge of several languages: Russian, English, Spanish, and Finnish.
Zoya has not only excelled in her international marketing studies at Saint Joseph’s, but has also gotten extremely involved in all that the school has to offer. Her resume is extensive, with involvement in activities such as basketball, service trips, community service, two internships at KPMG and BDP International Inc. and an International Food Marketing study tour to Italy. As a part of Saint Joseph's University women’s basketball team, Zoya did ten hours of community service each semester. In addition, Zoya participated in two service trips: In El Salvador, the goal was fair trade and Zoya wrote an article in the Spring 2007 issue of the Global Hawks News entitled “Ecuadorians Seek Fair Trade and Sweat Free” to chronicle the difficult situation there and encourage students to support fair trade. Furthermore, Zoya’s experience in El Salvador motivated her to participate in community service in the Philadelphia area and also go to the Summer immersion service trip to Ecuador.
Additionally, Zoya participated in the Summer Scholars Program with Dr. Julie Stanton where her research topic was global marketing of athletic shoes. She wrote a paper entitled “The importance of the youth consumer in global sports companies (Nike, Adidas, Puma, etc.)” and presented her paper at the 12th Cross Cultural Research Conference in Hawaii. As a result of her hard work and excellence in her academics and sports at Saint Joseph’s, the Dean of the business school sponsored Zoya’s travel to the conference.
Zoya is very grateful for her enriching and successful years at Saint Joseph’s and is especially grateful to her basketball coach Cindy Griffin who recruited her. Zoya said, “Without basketball I would not have been able to come here. Without this I would have not been able to play basketball at the Division I level and to study at a prestigious Jesuit university.” Zoya received her degree in December 2007 and is now actively pursuing her first job. She would like to work with clients, doing something creative and preferably international in order to use her language abilities. As for a long term goal, Zoya would like to pursue a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in Business Administration with specialization in marketing or international business. She has a strong desire be a college professor in the United States after being inspired by both of her grandparents and her mother who are all professors at Russian universities.
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