Category Archives: Hires & Fires

Olga Turischeva hired from VC firm to head Sber University

Sberbank Corporate University (Sber University), an institution belonging to Russia’s biggest lender Sberbank, has a new rector, Olga Turischeva, who has been hired from Russian venture capital firm RTP Global, the bank said in a statement. Turischeva’s record includes jobs at Russia’s search engine Rambler, consumer electronic retail chain M.video and telecommunications company Vimpelcom. Sber… Continue Reading

Guernsey Finance rep to promote Guernsey financial services in S. Africa

Guernsey Finance, a public-private agency for the promotion of Guernsey’s financial services industry, has appointed its first dedicated representative to South Africa, giving the role to Grant McLeod, who has had a long career in the African country’s financial sector. McLeod’s duties will include promoting the Channel island’s financial industry not only in South Africa… Continue Reading

Sberbank media chief Dobrokhvalova to simultaneously head Rambler

Sberbank, Russia’s biggest lender, has announced that the head of its media, advertising and entertainments division, Tatyana Dobrokhvalova, has been appointed as chief executive officer of Russian internet company Rambler, a Sberbank subsidiary, a position she will combine with her current Sberbank post. As CEO of Rambler, a company that runs one of Russia’s key… Continue Reading

Sberbank promotes tech unit chief to senior VP

Konstantin Kruglov, chief executive of the SberDevices department of Sberbank’s technology division, has been promoted to senior vice-president of Russia’s biggest lender. Kruglov will remain in the technology division and will continue to oversee the development of artificial intelligence-based solutions for speech, natural language processing, face and voice authentication and virtual assistants technologies, Sberbank said… Continue Reading

Andrey Shemetov raised to senior VP of Sberbank, tasked with global business, investment, oversight of key clients

Russia’s biggest lender Sberbank has promoted Andrey Shemetov, one of its senior managers, to the rank of senior vice-president with the duties of overseeing activities in world markets, investment business, and work with key clients. In this position, Shemetov will be one of the top figures in the corporate and investment arm, Sberbank’s largest division,… Continue Reading

Seychelles-based CFD broker M4Markets hires Marilena Iakovou from Tickmill as head of marketing

By Andrei Skvarsky. M4Markets, a foreign exchange (FX) and contract-for-differences (CFD) brokerage headquartered in Seychelles, has announced it has hired Marilena Iakovou from FX broker Tickmill as chief marketing officer (CMO). A CFD is a financial derivatives trading deal where the difference between the open and closing trade prices is paid by the buyer to… Continue Reading

EM communications firm makes three senior hires

By Andrei Skvarsky. EM, an emerging markets communications and investor relations consultancy, has made three senior hires with Daria Khilenkova joining the company in Moscow, Jamie Hyman in London and Yury Krebs in Valencia. Khilenkova, who comes from investment bank Renaissance Capital, is in charge of financial communications in Moscow, according to an EM statement.… Continue Reading

Sberbank appoints head of marketing, names head of Sberbank Life Insurance

By Andrei Skvarsky. Russia’s biggest lender Sberbank has vested vice-president Vladislav Kreynin with the duties of head of marketing and communications to supplement his current role of chief growth officer for the SberX ecosystem and named ex-Raiffeisen banker Igor Kobzar as chief executive of Sberbank Life Insurance. Kreynin will receive the title of Sberbank senior… Continue Reading

Sberbank setting up Mideast subsidiary

By Andrei Skvarsky. Russia’s biggest lender Sberbank is planning an addition to its global network by establishing an investment subsidiary for the Middle East, to practise both conventional and Islamic investment banking, and expects to open it by the end of 2020. Regulators in Russia and the United Arab Emirates have given the go-ahead to… Continue Reading

Sberbank hires S7 airline ex-deputy CEO to oversee IT in subsidiaries, affiliates

By Andrei Skvarsky. Russia’s biggest lender Sberbank has hired Pavel Voronin, a former information technology chief of the country’s second-largest airline S7, as chief information officer (CIO) for the bank’s subsidiaries and affiliates. Voronin will report to Sberbank chief technology officer David Rafalovsky and interact with the CIO of the Sberbank ecosystem, Oksana Smirnova-Krell, the… Continue Reading

Sberbank to set up company to develop driverless cars

By Andrei Skvarsky. Sberbank, Russia’s biggest lender, is planning to convert one of its divisions into a subsidiary with the name Sber Automotive Technologies (SberAutoTech) to develop self-driving cars and digital automotive services. SberAutoTech’s first few driverless vehicles are planned to roll off the production line late in 2020 or early in 2021, Sberbank said… Continue Reading

Sberbank hires Tatyana Dobrokhvalova as head of advertising and media

Sberbank, Russia’s biggest lender, has announced it has hired Tatyana Dobrokhvalova, formerly a senior executive in a media company in the Gazprom group and a top figure in the Sochi 2014 Olympics organising committee, as head of advertising and media. Dobrokhvalova joined Sberbank from Gazprom-Media, a firm where she had been deputy CEO. Gazprom-Media is… Continue Reading

Renaissance Capital hires Maria Radchenko as chief fixed income analyst

Investment bank Renaissance Capital has hired Maria Radchenko from Moscow-headquartered investment company BCS Global Markets as head of fixed income analysis. Radchenko has joined RenCap’s distribution team for Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and is based in Moscow, according to a RenCap statement. She reports to Grigory Sedov, global head of private… Continue Reading

BCS GM hires oil and gas analyst Ronald Smith from Citi

By Andrei Skvarsky. BCS Global Markets (BCS GM), the investment banking arm of Russia’s BCS Financial Group, has hired Ronald Smith from Citibank as senior oil and gas analyst. Smith will be based in Moscow, BCS GM said in a statement. He will report to the investment bank’s head of research, Kirill Chuyko. At Citibank,… Continue Reading

Standard Chartered appoints CFO for Africa and Mideast

Standard Chartered on June 8 announced the appointment of Subhradeep Mohanty, previously the bank’s chief financial officer (CFO) for India, as CFO for Africa and the Middle East (AME). Before joining Standard Chartered in 2014, Mohanty held Singapore- and Hong Kong-based CFO roles at J.P. Morgan, positions at American Express and a job at one… Continue Reading

Drake Star Partners CEO to oversee company selection for investment portfolio of Da Vinci’s Emerging Technologies Fund III

Emerging markets fund manager Da Vinci Capital has hired Gregory Bedrosian, co-founder of four investment firms, to head the evaluation committee for companies being considered for inclusion in the portfolio of the firm’s Emerging Technologies Fund III. Da Vinci expects to launch the fund, a vehicle for investment in technology companies across Eurasia, late in 2020… Continue Reading

Sberbank PR chief Anna Kozlovskaya quitting

By Andrei Skvarsky. Sberbank has announced that Anna Kozlovskaya, its head of public relations, is leaving Russia’s biggest lender seven months after joining it. Kozlovskaya, who came to Sberbank in October 2019 from Mastercard, has overseen the bank’s press service and the communications and media relations of its ecosystem, which consists of more than 40… Continue Reading

Renaissance Capital makes five hires for distribution team

By Andrei Skvarsky. Renaissance Capital, an investment bank with operations in emerging and frontier markets across the globe, has made five hires for its distribution team to fill roles such as oversight of structured products and the high-net-worth individual (HNWI) clientele. RenCap quoted one of its senior managers as saying that, despite the Covid-19 pandemic,… Continue Reading

Sberbank hires Viktor Shkipin, ex-manager at Alfa-Bank, VTB to run marketing, communications

By Andrei Skvarsky. Sberbank, Russia’s largest bank, has hired Viktor Shkipin, a former head of marketing at Russian lenders Alfa-Bank and VTB, as senior vice-president and head of marketing and communications. Shkipin’s duties will include oversight of Sberbank group companies specialising in advertising and media projects in addition to managing marketing and communications at the… Continue Reading

Russia’s Sberbank parting company with marketing chief Marina Zhigalova-Ozkan

By Andrei Skvarsky. Marina Zhigalova-Ozkan, senior vice-president of Russia’s biggest lender Sberbank and head of its marketing and communications department, is leaving the bank nine months after joining it. “In these difficult times I’ve made up my mind to focus on developing my own business,” a Sberbank statement quoted Zhigalova-Ozkan as saying. Zhigalova-Ozkan has overseen… Continue Reading

African Development Bank parting company with senior vice-president Charles Boamah

By Andrei Skvarsky. Charles Boamah is stepping down as senior vice-president of the African Development Bank, according to a statement from the lender. Boamah has spent 23 years at the development bank, having held the positions of director of accounting, controller and chief financial officer (combining the latter post with that of vice-president), before being… Continue Reading