Anatoly Serdyukov

Anatoly Eduardovich Serdyukov (Анатолий Эдуардович Сердюков; born 8 January 1962) is a Russian politician and businessman.

Born at Krasnodar Krai on 8 January 1962, Serdyukov graduated from the Institute of Industrial Management, Economics and Trade in 1984 with a degree in economics.

In 1985, after release from the compulsory military service, he began work as assistant manager, and then manager at a furniture shop of Lenmebeltorg (Leningrad Furniture manufacturer and retailer).

In 1991, he was promoted to deputy commercial director of Lenmebeltorg.

He was promoted to general director when Lenmebeltorg transformed into JSC (Saint-Petersburg Industrial Company).

From 1993 to 2000 he worked at Mebel-Market company, Saint Petersburg, first as deputy director, then as marketing director, and finally from 1995-2000 as CEO.

Serdyukov's already successful career further developed in tandem with his father-in-law, Viktor Zubkov, and after the election of Vladimir Putin as Russian President in 2000.

From 2000 to 2001, Serdyukov, working under his father-in-law Viktor Zubkov, served as deputy chief of the Saint Petersburg Directorate of the Tax Ministry of Russia (now Federal Taxation Service of Russia).

In 2001, Serdyukov graduated from the Law Department of Saint Petersburg State University.

From 2001 to 2004, he led the directorate, succeeding Viktor Zubkov.

On 2 March 2004, he was appointed deputy tax minister of Russia.

From 2004 to 2007, he led the tax ministry (in July 2004 reorganized into the Federal Tax Service of Russia).

During this period, the key officials of the service were replaced mainly by Serdyukov's colleagues from Saint Petersburg.

He also often resorted to personnel rotation and appointment of former federal tax officials to the regional tax service departments in the federal subjects of Russia.

During his tenure, court decisions in favour of the federal tax service became much more common.

While the service was formally subordinate to the finance ministry under Alexey Kudrin, in fact Serdyukov very much leaned towards Presidential aide Viktor Ivanov.

He was Russia's Minister of Defense from 15 February 2007 to 6 November 2012, and made several major reforms of the Russian military.

On 15 February 2007, President Vladimir Putin appointed Serdyukov as Minister of Defence (Russia), with the main task of fighting corruption and inefficiency in the Russian armed forces.

This started the conflict, that would last through Serdyukov time as Defense Minister with the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation since General Staff considered appointment of a civilian, with no remarkable military background and former furniture dealer as an insult.

To sharpen the conflict, Head of General Staff at the time Yuri Baluyevsky demanded that the new defence minister would have to spend 1 month in General Staff at "preparation training" to have an idea of the "job in hand".

On 14 September 2007, Serdyukov offered his resignation to the president over family relations with Viktor Zubkov, but this resignation was not accepted.

However before Putin responded, Baluyevsky did publicly support the resignation of Serdyukov and stated sarcastically that "the next defence minister could be a woman".

After Putin rejected resignation of Serdyukov, Serdyukov retaliated by organising an audit and inspection how the senior members of General Staff did manage with the mandatory physical requirements test for armed forces members.

Most of them failed and hence created a storm in a Russian media.

In office, Serdyukov chose not to get involved in the daily administration of troops and operational-strategic planning, leaving these matters to the professionals.

Instead, he focused on organizational and budgetary issues, in which he, according to 'Moscow Defense Brief'', "insisted upon an unprecedented (at least for the MoD) level of precision and fastidiousness."

This reportedly enabled him to quickly "put the generals in their place," and "to instill a level of background fear that even the old-timers do not recall having seen before."

According to an anecdote, an officer in one of the central directorates of the MoD explained: "senior generals go to meetings of the Defense Board as to the scaffold."

To deal with the budgetary issues, Serdyukov brought in his old colleagues from the Federal Tax Service and created new department in MoD for financial control.

MoD had no control nor oversight until then over the management of defence budget.

This had all been managed so far by the General Staff.

Years before Serdyukov's appointment as Minister of Defence, the Russian defence budget had been growing significantly but the extra amounts disappeared on regular basis and were not visible anywhere.

Apparently bringing this under control was the first and most important reason why Serdyukov was considered and appointed as Minister of Defence.

According to Moscow Defense Brief, Serdyukov’s first year in office was marked by convulsions, "the likes of which have not been seen on the Arbat in decades."

The magazine pointed out, that "Serdyukov brought apparently unlimited energy to a thorough purge of the department."

He fired almost a third of the top officers of the Central Military Administration and initiated a sea of change in the Ministry of Defense.

During his time in office, Serdyukov launched several wide-reaching reforms.

The main idea behind his reforms was the transformation from a mass mobilization army to a small force of contract soldiers.

In 2010, Serdyukov launched a $430 billion military reform to be achieved over the next 15 years in order to fully re-equip Russian conventional forces.

He has worked as an Industrial Director for Rostec, a state corporation, since October 2015.