Sergei Gorkov

Founded in 1922, Vnesheconombank is one of the oldest banks in Russia, but was acquired as a state development bank in 2007.

He has an older brother, Alexei Gorkov (born 1963), who joined the VEB board of directors in January 2017, and a younger sister, Antonina Konoplya (born 1971).

Sergei Nikolayevich Gorkov (also tr. Sergey; Серге́й Никола́евич Горько́в; born 1 December 1968) is a Russian banker and attorney.

Currently, he serves as chairman of Vnesheconombank (VEB), a major Russian state-owned bank.

Gorkov was born in Gai, Orenburg Oblast, Soviet Russia, in 1968, to Nikolai Gorkov and Lyubov Gorkova.

In 1994, Sergei graduated with a law degree from the Academy of the Federal Counter-Intelligence Service, which prepares members for the Foreign Intelligence Service and Federal Security Service (FSB).

Gorkov later worked with Bank Menatep (1994–1997) before joining the Yukos oil company and Yukos Moscow (1997–2005), all of which are now defunct.

He was a vice president at Yukos, where he oversaw personnel and pensions.

He was also engaged in a social outreach program, Yukos' own youth movement called "New Civilization" («Новая Цивилизация»).

The movement, which was extremely costly, had a mission to change Russia, and involved summer camps and young people engaging in the political system with their own party and parliament.

In 2002, he earned a master's degree in economics at the Plekhanov Russian University of Economics.

He speaks Russian, English and Arabic.

In 2003, Yukos began to collapse under a massive tax scandal amid lawsuits against the Russian government.

Forbes stated it was a large mystery how Gorkov managed to avoid arrest, but inside sources (including Pavel Ivlev) stated it was through his connections with the Kremlin and the FSB.

Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky, an enemy of Russian leader Vladimir Putin, was imprisoned for eight years for fraud and tax evasion, a conviction that drew skepticism in the West.

Gorkov's subordinate, Alexei Kurtsin, was sentenced to 15 years in prison for embezzlement and served eight.

In 2005, after the Yukos fiasco, Gorkov moved to London, where he worked with several companies.

From 2005 to 2008, he sat on the board of directors of FESCO Transport Group, Russia's largest intermodal transport operator.

He sat on the board of directors for Eton Energy Ltd. and for liquor company New Muscovy Company Ltd. Gorkov returned to Russia in 2006.

During the financial crisis of 2007–08, Vnesheconombank's status as a state-owned bank forced it to assist the government with the domestic economy.

It reorganized struggling banks, purchased two steel companies, bought 175 billion rubles (approximately $3 billion) of sagging shares of Russian companies to keep them afloat, and also heavily invested in struggling Ukrainian banks.

Gorkov moved into the banking sector in November 2008, when he joined the state-owned Sberbank as director of personnel.

During the recession, Gorkov oversaw an overhaul of the workforce, reducing the number of employees from 270,000 to 240,000 to increase efficiency and profit.

He also led a retraining program, with 200,000 of the employees receiving some form of retraining, and introduced an employee evaluation system that led to monthly bonuses for the best employees.

Previously, between 2010 and 2016, he was the deputy chairman of Sberbank, Russia's largest bank.

He is a graduate of the Academy of the Federal Counter-Intelligence Service, which prepares members for the Foreign Intelligence Service and Federal Security Service (FSB), and holds a master's degree in economics.

Gorkov was tremendously successful during his first five years at Sberbank; Gorkov was appointed deputy chairman of the board of Sberbank in October 2010.

He was promoted to run its international operations division and helped it expand its business reach from two countries to 20.

Its international expansion included acquisitions of Volksbank of Austria and DenizBank of Turkey.

Starting in October 2012, Gorkov was chairman of Sberbank's division in Kazakhstan.

When Gorkov arrived in 2012, VEB was struggling to stay afloat; it reportedly needed 1.3 trillion rubles (approximately $22.8 billion) by 2020 to avoid defaulting on its debt.

VEB, which has been dubbed Vladimir Putin's "pet bank" and "slush fund" by Western observers, also lent significantly for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, covertly funded pro-Russian groups in Ukraine, and has frequently bailed out Russian oligarchs close to Putin.

According to Foreign Policy's assessment, VEB "functions as an off-the-books kitty that allows President Vladimir Putin to reward his allies and shower money on his pet projects and political priorities."

In July 2014, Vnesheconombank was slapped with sanctions by the European Union and the United States over the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The bank is also pursuing deals in the Persian Gulf and Islamic world.

In 2015, the bank received a $20 billion bailout following approval of Minister of Finance Anton Siluanov.

In February 2016, Russian President Vladimir Putin promoted Gorkov to chairman of Vnesheconombank (VEB), succeeding Vladimir Dmitriev.

According to Russian sources, Gorkov's connection to the FSB played a part in his appointment to lead VEB; Putin, the former director of the FSB, has appointed several of its members to important roles in Russian government.

In 2016, Gorkov announced VEB would partner with the Islamic Development Bank in Saudi Arabia, a financing conglomerate of 56 Islamic countries, with an initial pilot project of $100 million.

In 2017, Gorkov drew significant attention in Western media over his December 2016 meeting with Jared Kushner, son-in-law and top adviser to then president-elect Donald Trump.