Anatoly Chubais

Anatoly Chubais has an older brother, Igor Chubais (born 1947), a philosopher.

Anatoly Borisovich Chubais (Анатолий Борисович Чубайс; born 16 June 1955) is a Russian politician and economist who was responsible for privatization in Russia as an influential member of Boris Yeltsin's administration in the early 1990s.

During this period, he was a key figure in introducing a market economy and the principles of private ownership to Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union.

He has the federal state civilian service rank of 1st class Active State Councillor of the Russian Federation.

Chubais was born on 16 June 1955 in the town of Borisov, Belarus, which was then part of the Soviet Union, the son of Raisa Efimovna (Sagal) and Boris Matveyevich Chubais.

Though his mother received a degree in economics at university, she opted to stay home to care for their children on the military bases where her husband was regularly assigned.

In 1977, Chubais graduated from the Leningrad Institute of Engineering and Economics (LEEI) in present-day St. Petersburg and joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union until 1991 when he left it.

While later working at LEEI, Chubais started a club called Reforma, which helped turn the city of Leningrad into a model of political reform by constructing platforms for both local and national elections.

Reforma also engaged in drafting reformist legislation, an important step down the road when Chubais would work in the city government.

Starting in the early 1980s, Chubais became a leader of an informal circle of market-oriented economists in Leningrad.

In 1982, he attained the rank of associate professor (доцент) at LEEI, while in 1983, he received his Candidate of Sciences (Ph.D.) degree in Economics for the dissertation entitled "Исследование и разработка методов планирования совершенствования управления в отраслевых научно-технических организациях" (Research and Development of Methods for the Planned Improvement of Management in Industrial Research and Development Organizations).

In 1982, together with economists Yury Yarmagayev and Grigory Glazkov, he published an article titled "Вопросы расширения хозяйственной самостоятельности предприятий в условиях научно-технического прогресса" (Questions of Expanding the Autonomy of Business Enterprises under the conditions of Scientific and Technological Progress) in which the authors argue that no amount of central planning can predict the end-demand for products.

In 1982, Chubais was introduced to the future Prime Minister of Russia Yegor Gaidar, who was invited to and attended seminars led by Chubais.

By 1987, Chubais had become the organiser of the Leningrad chapter of the club Perestroyka, whose mission was to promote and discuss democratic ideas among the local intelligentsia.

Among the people involved were his brother, Igor, who had founded the Moscow-based chapter of the Perestroyka and Perestroyka-88 clubs, future Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Kudrin, future Chubais associates Pyotr Mostovoy and Alexander Kazakov, the future President of Saint Petersburg bank Vladimir Kogan, future Minister of Anti-Monopoly Policy and Entrepreneurship Support Ilya Yuzhanov, and future Deputy Governor of Saint Petersburg Mikhail Manevich.

The dissident economists organized a tulip farm to finance their seminars.

In the four days before the International Women's Day (8 March), they managed to get income equivalent to the price of several Lada cars.

The tulip money was used to finance the elections of Anatoly Sobchak, Yury Boldyrev and many other democratic candidates.

As a result, 2/3 of the deputies winning the 1990 elections to Leningrad Soviet were from the opposition.

Chubais himself later stated that he personally did not participate in growing or selling of the flowers.

At the end of 1990, the economist Vitaly Nayshul proposed the idea of using vouchers to facilitate mass privatization in order to transform the Soviet Union into a market economy.

Chubais strongly criticized the scheme at the time, citing the inevitable inequality and social tensions that would result if implemented as proposed.

Ironically, Chubais would later become the champion of the same concept just several years later.

In 1990, upon the election of Anatoly Sobchak as Chairman of the Leningrad City Council, Chubais assumed the position of his Deputy.

He was trying to implement Sobchak's idea of creating a Free Economic Zone in Leningrad.

In 1991, Chubais declined the offer to become the Chairman of the Leningrad Executive Committee to instead become an advisor to the mayoral administration in Leningrad (by now renamed St. Petersburg) where Sobchak had just been elected mayor.

At the same time, Chubais worked as the president of newly established Wassily Leontief Center for Research in Economics.

In November 1991, Chubais became a minister in the Yeltsin Cabinet where he managed the portfolio of Rosimushchestvo (the Committee for the Management of State Property) which was handling privatization in Russia.

Chubais originally advocated rapid privatization in order to raise revenue, similar to the model used in Hungary.

However, the Congress of People's Deputies of Russia rejected this model.

Eventually, a compromise was proposed in the form of a voucher privatization program akin to the program used in the Czech Republic at the time.

On 11 June 1991, the Supreme Soviet of Russia adopted this compromise and the massive program was officially initiated by decree of President Boris Yeltsin on 19 August 1991.

This privatization program later came under heavy criticism.

From 1998 to 2008, he headed the state-owned electrical power monopoly RAO UES.

A 2004 survey conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the Financial Times named Chubais the world's 54th most respected business leader.

He was the head of the Russian Nanotechnology Corporation (RUSNANO) in 2008–2020.

He was a member of the Advisory Council for JPMorgan Chase from September 2008 until 2013.

From December 2020, he served as a Special representative of the President of the Russian Federation for Relations with International Organisations to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.

On 22 March 2022, Chubais resigned from his position of special representative and left Russia due to his opposition to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, according to media reports.

He is the highest ranked Russian figure to have resigned due to the invasion.