Christian Ray Flores was born in Moscow. His family lived in Chile, Germany, Mozambique and again in Moscow. Christian is fluent in Russian, English, Spanish and Portuguese. In 1986, Christian graduated from high school and entered the Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia, from which he graduated in 1991, becoming a specialist in the field of economic sciences. After working for a couple of years in the field of international trade, Christian decided to start a music career.
Christian’s music videos were shot by Roman Prygunov, Vlad Opelyants, and Maxim Osadchy. Christian also recorded the song “Circle of the Moon, Sign of Love” in a duet with Christina Orbakaite. The composition was written in collaboration with Andrei Grozny, and the video was shot by director Yuri Grymov. Also, Christian has collaborated with the soloist of the group “A-Studio” Batyrkhan Shukenov, Vladimir Presnyakov Jr., recorded at the studio of Alla Pugacheva.
In addition, Christian was involved in production. Together with the manager Andrei Shlykov and producer Andrei Grozny, he took part in the creation of the “Brilliant” group. In collaboration with Andrey Grozny, Christian created the first hit of the group – the song “There, Only There” and a duet with Olga Orlova “Sound of Rain”.
In 1995, the singer became seriously interested in Christianity. He began attending the Moscow Church of Christ. In 2004, Christian moved to the United States with his family. The next three years he devoted exclusively to charitable work: he collaborated with the international organization HOPE worldwide, engaged in projects to create medical centers, schools and orphanages for the poor in Latin America and Mozambique.
Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Ray and https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Кристиан_Рэй
– Christian, how did you end up in Austin?
I ended up in Austin because a few friends moved and they really liked it here. They told me to join them, but at the time I was in Los Angeles and I had my own entertainment business, and I could, in principle, do it from anywhere. Plus, we are not denominational Christians, and it was an interesting opportunity for us to start from scratch, in the Evangelical Protestant community, and here in Austin there was an opportunity to try it and there were no restrictions in terms of geography. So we moved to Austin. Friends, our mission, and quality of life were the reason for the move.
After the move, he continued to participate in the entertainment business, but after a couple of years, since most of our market was in Eurasia, and the economy began to decline, I had to start a new business in Austin.
– Please tell us about your new business.
It is a marketing agency and venture development, ThirdDrive.co. Basically, we are involved in working with businesses, mainly startups. They lack something, lack capital, lack some marketing elements, but we can help find investments and build a good business plan. There is a whole series of things that are necessary for any business to move up. We get involved in this business and help bring it to another level. Our company is small, the main team is 9-10 people, but we also work with other companies, depending on the project we are working on.
– What type of startups do you work with?
Our profile is quite broad, but we work a lot with non-profit organizations. They do not have their own people who can work on this, and they need specialists from outside, but of course there are limitations in budgets. And we help them. These startups are mostly tech startups, such as WAVi (Wavimed.com), which makes a portable EEG brain device using cloud technology. Or Collective Liberty, a non-profit company that uses big data to fight sex trafficking. Now the latest project is Xcite and Visioneer, they are engaged in audience engagement, which is essentially support for large conferences, sports events, etc. It is interactable and helps to communicate with a large number of people, receive feedback, mood, entertainment and so on, and now it is very relevant, since people do not have the opportunity to communicate in person. Our clients are big sports names like NBA, NHL, NFL, etc. and corporations such as Netflix, event platforms, etc.
– Which of your projects are the most memorable, why?
I think number one is actually what we are doing now and, perhaps, the most interesting project so far is working with Xcite. It is because of just such a moment in time that now a huge number of large organizations that have lost or are largely losing the ability to continue to communicate with the public, or, for example, even with employees, and this product, for example, is used by such a company as Netflix and other large companies. And this is interesting precisely because it is so fresh now, the whole world is moving online at an accelerated pace, because everyone understands that, firstly, physical presence is no longer necessary, and secondly, it is not guaranteed. Even when the pandemic is over, some things, of course, will return to square one, but we now understand that the whole world can just take and stop, and this has never happened in the history of mankind, and this reality – it will not go away and, accordingly, the entire business world will live with this new dimension, and continue to plan with this in mind. Therefore, even if we return to the norm, everyone will understand that this norm may at any time be taken away again. This is firstly, and secondly, since we had to be isolated literally at the global level, a huge number of the population, tens of millions of people, had to adapt, understand and adopt new technologies. For example, I personally have been using zoom for several years, but most of my friends until recently did not know what it was, and now our parents had to learn what zoom is. In just 2-3 months, 10 million people understood what virtual meetings are. And this is a huge change, a huge step at the global level that will help people adapt to these technologies and therefore, I think this business will grow.
WAVi brain scanners are also very interesting. The technology is not new, but it allows you to understand in just a few minutes how active different parts of the brain are. This is used for diagnostics. But what’s new in WAVi is a portable diagnostic that allows you to quickly identify any changes. This is especially important in sports, for example, any school with a huge number of children who go in for sports: gymnastics, football, hockey, where a child may have a concussion. Therefore, the initial baseline of all students is taken and stored, and when someone has a concussion, another scan is done in order to understand when they are ready to return to the game, because you can compare the picture before and after. That is, there is a huge benefit from this both in sports and in other areas where there is physical activity, from which one can suffer, as well as dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, and so on. The scanner can show how the disease is progressing. This is a very rough description, of course, it all has a scientific basis. It can be used in schools and healthcare facilities, and is very easy to teach, so it is a very useful technology.
– What do you like most about Austin?
In the USA, I have lived in Philadelphia, Palm Beach, Los Angeles, many places, and Austin brings the best from a small city: a friendly atmosphere, kind people, less crowds, but at the same time, it is a fairly big city, there is culture and theaters, restaurants and a business atmosphere where you can meet very interesting people doing very interesting things. And this cultural golden mean is very appealing to me.
The city is very cosmopolitan due to the student body and the people working in the technology field. Plus – the climate, greenery, water. I really like the warmth, I have lived so many years in Russia that I am never going to return to the cold.
– Tell us about your family?
My wife’s name is Debbie, and we have been married for almost 21 years. We have three children. The eldest daughter is 25, the middle is 18, the youngest is 16. Three girls and all are still in Austin, until they try to get away from us. This is our 8th year in Austin.
– How do you participate in the life of the Russian-speaking community?
I just have a few Russian-speaking friends and, from time to time, I am invited to some picnics, especially in the south of Austin. But, in principle, apart from this, I do not really participate. I am more on the international / virtual level, in fact. I have many friends in the media in Russia and other places, I sometimes do interviews and speeches. On NTV USA we recently held a small musical concert in support of medical workers. I communicate globally with the Russian-speaking environment, but in Austin it is rather just a narrow circle of friends.
– How are your relations with your homeland developing?
I try to go to Russia once a year, but I haven’t been to Russia for a couple of years for various reasons. In Russia, I have my mother, cousins and literally hundreds of friends.
– Tell us about your hobbies.
Music. It used to be my profession, now it’s more of a hobby. From time to time I record songs and do media projects. Musical creativity is my hobby. Although, of course, there is enough media creativity in work too. I direct commercials, write a lot, we do design too.
But for several years in a row I have voiced the cartoon “Masha and the Bear”, this is also a hobby. There are practically no words, but music, exclamations and songs, some of them have a male voice, and I just dubbed it in the Spanish version and in the English one. In fact the person who is producing all this from a musical point of view is an old friend of mine. He lives in Vegas, and when I was still living in Los Angeles, he invited me to participate. But for me it’s a hobby, it’s just fun! Sometimes the kids who hear this suddenly realize that I sang something there. The most surprising thing to me is that I am already used to the fact that someone in Russia sometimes remembers me because of my musical career. But the fact that from time to time I receive letters from Latin America, for example, from Spanish-speaking fans, or from relatives in Chile, whose children watch this cartoon and they recognize my voice, is very strange, but interesting. I also shot a short film at the Bolshoi Theater and ran it at festivals. You can watch it for free on our website.
Hobby: https://www.thirddrive.co/dancewithmeru
– What would you like to wish for Russian-speaking Austin?
Make friends and actively support and help each other. Especially in this time where everyone is isolated, it is certainly difficult for people, I think.
Contact information:
Christian Ray Flores
Instagram: @christianrayflores
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christianrayflores/
Startup Growth | Third Drive: www.thirddrive.co
Editor: Irina Khoroshavina
Publisher: Russian Cultural Center