Olga Dergunova

Olga Dergunova (born 1965) is the Deputy President of VTB Bank, a bank headquartered in Russia.

She was hired to head the IT systems merger for the different subsidiaries of VTB Bank.

She started her career in the IT industry before working as President of Microsoft Russia.

Olga Dergunova was born in Moscow in 1965, in what was then the Soviet Union.

She studied at and graduated from the Plekhanov Russian University of Economics, focusing on computer science and economic cybernetics.

Before joining Microsoft Russia, Olga Dergunova worked as a sales and marketing director at a Russian IT company.

She worked at various IT companies between 1992 and 1994.

Olga Dergunova was hired at Microsoft's relatively new Russian operation, which had only existed for 18 months.

The operation at the time related to the licensing of the company's programs.

She joined in part to gain a global perspective on the technology industry.

In 1995, Dergunova was promoted to general director of the company's Russian branch, and she became its chair in 2004.

At the time that Dergunova entered Microsoft, Russia was slowly being converted from a communist country into a capitalist country, following the fall of the Soviet Union.

During this period of time, the two primary concerns of Western IT companies operating in Russia were a lack of demand for their products and the online piracy of their products.

Software used to be sold in the country unlicensed, so the idea of licensed software was relatively new to the country.

Over the course of her tenure, and in the general Russian market, the piracy of software has declined.

However, piracy was still common in the country in the mid-2000s.

One of her biggest roles was to explain the concept of intellectual property to Russian consumers, with the goal of decreasing piracy and increasing demand for the company's products.

In order to improve the sales of Microsoft products in the country, she lowered the prices of the company's products and hired local residents to sell products to consumers.

The programs were also translated into Russian.

A 2001 Wall Street Journal report listed her among the Top 30 most influential European businesswomen.

As a result of local hiring efforts, in 2005 over half of all Russian IT workers worked for Microsoft, according to Microsoft's estimate.

With regards to intellectual property enforcement, Dergunova usually focused on larger counterfeit software sellers rather than individuals who download the products for personal usage or for small-scale distribution.

She transitioned to VTB Bank in 2007, working as a member of the Management Board, before leaving to serve in the Russian Government as Deputy Minister of Economic Development and also as the head of the Federal Agency for State Property Management.

In 2007, Olga Dergunova left Microsoft Russia to join VTB Bank's Management Board.

This occurred shortly after VTB Bank's initial public offering in London.

Her switch to banking also occurred during the 2007 Global Financial Crisis.

Her family members, including her husband who works in finance, taught her many terms necessary to operate in a bank.

She was hired as a member of the company's Management board.

She also worked as the head of the Second Corporate Block, serving the bank's major clients.

She worked in this role from 2007 to 2012, before her appointment to the Russian government.

In 2012, Olga Dergunova was appointed to head the Federal Agency for State Property Management and to serve as the deputy minister of economic development.

The agency is responsible for privatizing formerly state-owned businesses as well as managing government properties.

She was hired as Deputy President of VTB Bank in 2016.

Her main initiatives as Deputy President include preparing the company for digital banking transformations, including artificial intelligence and distributed ledger technology, as well as allowing customers access to their finances without visiting a physical branch location.

The overall privatization efforts sought to close the Russian governmental's budget shortfall caused by the collapse of oil prices, with efforts peaking in 2016.

One of the first businesses that Dergunova oversaw that had the potential to be privatized was Sovcomflot.

However, that business had not yet been sold by the time she left her position.

Another business touted to be privatized was VTB bank; at that point, the government owned 60.9 of its outstanding shares.

However, that deal did not happen as well, partly due to the recovery of oil prices generating more revenue for the Russian government to avoid having to sell equity in its businesses.

Overall, the privatization efforts sought to raise capital from Western investors in order to combat budget shortfalls due to both oil prices being depressed at the time as well as sanctions over Russia's annexation of Crimea.