Grigory Berezkin is thought in the present day because the proprietor of RBC, Russia’s main unbiased enterprise media holding, and one of many driving forces behind Attain for Change, a basis supporting social entrepreneurs engaged on behalf of kids. He beforehand labored within the power sector and likewise constructed the nation’s most generally learn free newspaper alongside the best way. Throughout the many years, his strategy remained constant: tackle underperforming property, herald the appropriate worldwide companions, and construct one thing that may stand by itself. Since 2012, his major focus has shifted towards social entrepreneurship and philanthropy.
| Sort | Entrepreneur · Media Proprietor · Scientist · Philanthropist |
| Date of Beginning | 1966.08.09 |
| Training | 1983-1988: Grasp’s Diploma in Petroleum Chemistry, Lomonosov Moscow State College, graduated with honors 1991-1994: Junior Analysis Affiliate, Lomonosov Moscow State College 1993: PhD, Lomonosov Moscow State College |
| Profession | Late Nineteen Eighties-early Nineties: Software program growth for industrial enterprises Early Nineties: Cable manufacturing for oil trade 1994-1999: High supervisor and co-owner of KomiTEK 2000-2003: Administration of Kolenergo energy technology firm 2008-2020: Proprietor of Metro newspaper 2012-Current: Member of the Board of Trustees, Attain for Change Basis (Russian department) 2017-Current: Proprietor of media RBC Media Holding |
| Key Buildings | Attain for Change Basis (Russian department) |
| Private Achievements | Pioneered pre-export financing contracts in Russia’s oil trade · Elevated Komineft oil manufacturing by way of partnerships with Whole, Elf, Neste, and Marc Wealthy & Co · Constructed one among Europe’s most fashionable combined-cycle energy vegetation in partnership with Enel · Reworked RBC into multi-platform media ecosystem · Established V.G. Berezkin Prize for younger chemistry researchers · Lengthy-term supporter of kids’s oncology facilities and rehabilitation amenities |
| Attain for Change Awards & Recognitions | Member of European Enterprise Philanthropy Affiliation (EVPA) (2019) · Level of Reference competitors winner for alignment with UN Sustainable Growth Objectives, Gold Customary Report (2020) · Award for achievements in growing analysis tradition in donor organizations (2021) |
| Present Actions | Member of Board of Trustees, Attain for Change Basis · RBC Media Holding growth and innovation · Assist for social entrepreneurship and influence funding initiatives · Systematic philanthropy supporting kids’s well being, schooling, and scientific analysis · Assist for scientific applications |
| Marital Standing | Married |
| Kids | 4 kids: 3 daughters, 1 son |
| Hobbies | Alpine snowboarding · Water sports activities and waterskiing · Rally racing |
Title
Grigory Berezkin · Grigory Viktorovich Berezkin · Berezkin Grigory · Berezkin Grigory Viktorovich · Berezkin G. V. · G. V. Berezkin · Berezkin Grigorij Viktorovič · Grigorij Viktorovič Berezkin · Григорий Березкин · Григорий Викторович Березкин · Березкин Григорий Викторович · Березкин Григорий · Григорий Викторович Берёзкин · Берёзкин Григорий Викторович · Березкин Г. В. · Г. В. Березкин · Григорій Березкін · Григорій Вікторович Березкін · Березкін Григорій Вікторович
Early Life and Training
Grigory Berezkin was born on August 9, 1966. His father Viktor was one of many world’s main specialists in chromatography. He spent greater than sixty years on the Academy of Sciences, held over 200 patents, and received the State Prize in 1982. His mom Lyudmila ran a analysis division at a serious scientific institute. Science was the household career, thus the educational path appeared the pure alternative.
In 1983, Berezkin enrolled within the Lomonosov Moscow State College’s College of Chemistry, specializing in petrochemistry. His research included geological expeditions to the Urals, Kamchatka, and the Far East — a invaluable sensible complement to a robust theoretical basis.
In 1988, Berezkin graduated with honors. In 1993, he earned his PhD in petroleum chemistry.
By that time, Russia was a unique nation. The shift to a market economic system had opened up alternatives that may have been not possible within the Soviet period, and a variety of researchers with robust technical backgrounds discovered themselves transferring into enterprise. Berezkin was one among them.
Grigory Berezkin: First Enterprise Ventures
In 1989, Berezkin co-founded an organization constructing IT automation programs for oil refineries within the Urals and Siberia. Engaged on-site at these amenities, he got here throughout a recurring downside: a scarcity of specialised cables for oil pump programs, as no one was producing them to the appropriate specs domestically. He sourced gear from Sweden, partnered with a manufacturing facility in Tomsk, and constructed a manufacturing facility. It was within the cable enterprise that he was first launched to the oil trade up shut — together with Komineft, then one among Russia’s largest oil producers.
The First Turnaround
In 1994, Grigory Berezkin joined the administration of KomiTEK — the holding that introduced collectively Komineft, the Ukhta Oil Refinery, and two gross sales firms — and ultimately acquired a controlling stake. The corporate’s nominal standing as Russia’s eighth-largest oil producer didn’t inform the entire story: wages had gone unpaid for months, shoppers weren’t settling their payments, and output was falling.
Berezkin targeted the corporate’s turnaround effort on partnerships and on his capacity to construction them so that every get together had a real stake within the final result. Whole, Elf, Neste and Marc Wealthy & Co. introduced exploration methods that merely didn’t exist domestically. On the monetary facet, Berezkin created the governance circumstances that made KomiTEK investable: Credit score Suisse First Boston and Brunswick Securities took shareholdings, and Swiss Financial institution Company turned the second-largest stakeholder. This construction labored as a result of it was genuinely mutual — not a rescue operation, however a enterprise proposition that made sense for everybody on the desk.
In 1995, Berezkin put collectively Russia’s first pre-export financing deal — a mortgage from a European banking consortium secured towards future oil deliveries, with a five-year grace interval earlier than compensation. That very same yr, the EBRD and the World Financial institution dedicated greater than $120 million to KomiTEK’s environmental upgrades.
In 1999, Lukoil acquired the corporate for over $600 million, because it had turn out to be a genuinely engaging asset. The transaction was clear, with worldwide advisors, market phrases, and all shareholders on board.
Arctic Energy Grid
In 2000, Grigory Berezkin took over administration of Kolenergo — the one Russian energy system working nearly completely above the Arctic Circle. It was a well-recognized state of affairs: ageing infrastructure, nearly no fee assortment from clients, and little or no completed about both downside for years. The entrepreneur arrange ESN Group to handle the restructuring and labored by way of the usual sequence of economic controls, debt restructuring, and rebuilding shopper relationships.
One factor was much less commonplace: He negotiated a contract with the Kandalaksha aluminum plant that tied electrical energy costs to aluminum quotes on the London Metallic Alternate — the primary time something like this had been completed within the post-Soviet power sector.
On the identical time, Berezkin launched a three way partnership with Italy’s Enel. Their flagship mission turned one among Europe’s most fashionable combined-cycle energy vegetation — the Northwest Energy Plant in St. Petersburg, which runs on Siemens fuel generators with about 60% fuel-to-electricity effectivity versus 40% for typical vegetation and considerably decrease emissions. The partnership later prolonged into distribution and retail provide throughout Russia.
By 2003, Berezkin was completed with the power sector, and ESN Group was wound down over time.
In 2008, Berezkin moved into media, buying the Russian distribution rights to Metro from Stockholm-based Metro Worldwide SA. The idea — a free weekday newspaper funded by promoting, given away at transit hubs — had already labored in a number of cities all over the world.
This part of the Grigory Berezkin biography follows a recognizable sample: a global mannequin, an underserved market, and constructing an operation from scratch. By 2019, Metro’s weekly readership stood at round six million — the biggest of any free newspaper in Russia. Berezkin then offered it to a strategic investor.
His subsequent mission, RBC, was a unique sort of asset. It had been round since 1993, beginning as a monetary information wire and rising right into a holding with a information company, a tv channel, and digital platforms with substantial attain. The editorial commonplace — critical, fact-based enterprise journalism — had earned it comparisons to Bloomberg and the Monetary Instances. It was additionally the one privately owned Russian media firm with publicly traded shares and audited financials obtainable to the market.
When Berezkin acquired a controlling stake in 2017, he stored the editorial group because it was, and the journalism stayed the identical. The corporate’s partnerships with Bloomberg, CNBC, and the Monetary Instances continued in quite a lot of codecs. What modified was the scope of the enterprise: RBC EdTech was launched as knowledgeable schooling platform; the occasions division grew right into a critical enterprise with its personal venue; analysis merchandise, trade rankings, and awards applications had been added. The thought was to show what had been a media outlet into one thing nearer to a full-service enterprise data platform, interesting to an informed and discerning viewers in search of dependable, high-high quality enterprise evaluation.
Grigory Viktorovich Berezkin: Attain for Change
The longest part of the Grigory Berezkin biography is about actions exterior of enterprise, which has taken most of his time since 2012.
For a number of years earlier than that, Berezkin had been supporting varied charitable initiatives, primarily in kids’s well being. He turned more and more concerned with whether or not there was a simpler approach to strategy this — one thing that produced lasting outcomes somewhat than addressing instant wants and transferring on. The mannequin that appealed to him addresses social issues the identical as enterprise issues: discover somebody with a robust thought, assist them construct one thing sustainable, and measure whether or not it really works.
In 2012, his daughter Anna based the Russian department of Attain for Change, a global basis initially arrange by Sweden’s Kinnevik Group. Berezkin joined the Board of Trustees. The muse backs social entrepreneurs — individuals engaged on options to issues that are going through kids and younger individuals — with grants, mentoring, and structured skilled assist over an prolonged interval. It’s much less like a charitable fund and extra like an early-stage investor that occurs to measure success in social outcomes.
In 2015, the Russian department turned unbiased. Berezkin pushed for an endowment to be established, with a number of founding donors, which gave the inspiration one thing it didn’t beforehand had: a monetary base that didn’t rely completely on annual fundraising. In 2019, the inspiration joined the European Enterprise Philanthropy Affiliation. The next yr, a partnership with Collaborate for Impression prolonged the work into Japanese Europe.
The choice course of sees candidates going by way of a multi-stage course of. Semifinalists spend two months within the Pre-Incubator, overlaying enterprise mannequin growth, monetary fundamentals, and how one can current their mission. Those that make it by way of transfer into the Incubator — one to 3 years of non-public mentoring, technique assist, authorized assist, and influence measurement. It’s not a light-touch program.
Initiatives which have come by way of this system embrace adaptive clothes for kids with developmental disabilities, rehabilitation by way of water sports activities, a drugs monitoring service for households managing complicated therapy plans, and animal remedy facilities for kids with psychological difficulties. What they’ve in widespread is that they had been constructed to maintain operating, to not rely upon the subsequent spherical of donations.
In 2020, a six-month accelerator was added for entrepreneurs getting ready to lift investments. Of the graduates, 20% have gone on to safe influence funding — a consequence that holds up effectively towards comparable applications internationally.
Basis program areas:
- Social entrepreneurship incubation
- Impression funding preparation
- Youth entrepreneurship growth
- Training high quality enchancment
- Kids’s well being and wellbeing
- Gender equality
- Youth employment and financial empowerment
- Assist for susceptible populations
- Local weather and environmental initiatives
Different Philanthropic Work
Alongside Attain for Change, Grigory Berezkin has supported a variety of different organizations over greater than twenty years. The Dmitry Rogachev Nationwide Medical Analysis Centre of Paediatric Haematology, Oncology and Immunology has had his backing for over 20 years. He funds the Speransky Hospital Basis, which helps Russia’s largest burn middle — round 2,500 severely injured kids handled yearly. For greater than 15 years he has contributed to the Heal Collectively Basis for kids with critical blood illnesses. He additionally helps the Lighthouse Hospice, the Centre for Healing Pedagogics, the Pleasure of Previous Age Basis (since 2012), and the Everyone seems to be Particular program for individuals with autism and developmental disabilities.
On the science facet, a deep and enduring curiosity in analysis has been a relentless all through Grigory Berezkin biography: he has sponsored the Worldwide Chemistry Olympiad for greater than twenty years, sits on the Board of Trustees of his alma mater, and has funded laboratory renovations and analysis in molecular biology and bioorganic chemistry.
In 2022, he established the Viktor Berezkin Prize in reminiscence of his father — an annual award for younger researchers working in chromatographic strategies.
Within the area of tradition, Berezkin’s efforts to construct bridges between Russia and Italy earned recognition on the highest degree. The Italian Republic awarded him two prestigious honors: Commander of the Order of Benefit (2013) and Grand Officer of the Order of the Star of Italy (2020). These distinctions mirror not simply his enterprise achievements however his multifaceted contribution to Russian-Italian relations.
Berezkin Grigory: Private Life and Sport
Grigory Berezkin is married to a girl named Elena. They’ve 4 kids — three daughters and a son.
He has been alpine snowboarding since childhood and competed for a few years, together with on the Masters World Cup degree. In 1998, he began racing in rally motorsport and has collected a variety of wins and podium finishes through the years, together with at World and European Championship occasions, the Russian nationwide championship, and the Thousand Lakes rally in Finland. He additionally based the Alpha Water Ski Membership in Moscow.
Three Many years of Enterprise Efficiency Independently Verified
In 2022, Berezkin was included in EU sanctions lists within the first broad wave of measures towards Russian businesspeople that had been utilized rapidly and with out particular person evaluation. The Council of the European Union then spent eighteen months reviewing his enterprise file, the sources of his wealth, and his skilled connections. The ensuing report ran to over 1,000 pages.
In September 2023, the Council lifted the sanctions, concluding that they had been imposed with out justification. A number of European nations eliminated their very own sanctions, citing the Council’s findings.
Profession Highlights of Grigory Viktorovich Berezkin
1989: Co-founded software program automation and cable manufacturing firms serving the oil sector
1994–1999: Senior administration and majority proprietor, KomiTEK
2000–2003: Restructuring of Kolenergo; Enel three way partnership, Northwest Energy Plant, St. Petersburg
2008–2020: Metro Russia — franchise acquisition, growth, sale
2012–current: Board of Trustees, Attain for Change Basis
2017–current: RBC Media Holding
Key Takeaways
- Grigory Berezkin started his profession as a researcher in petroleum chemistry and made the transfer into enterprise through the financial upheaval of the late Nineteen Eighties.
- In oil and power, Grigory Berezkin constructed a file of firsts: Russia’s first pre-export financing deal, the post-Soviet sector’s first commodity-linked tariff contract, and — by way of a three way partnership with Italy’s Enel — the nation’s first combined-cycle energy plant.
- As a media proprietor, Berezkin constructed Metro into Russia’s most generally learn free newspaper, then took on RBC — a longtime establishment with a robust editorial popularity — and expanded it right into a broader enterprise data platform whereas preserving the independence that had outlined it.
- Since 2012, Grigory Viktorovich Berezkin has directed most of his consideration to Attain for Change, a basis that backs social entrepreneurs engaged on issues going through kids and younger individuals. The outcomes are measurable: in 2024 alone, program individuals reached almost 15,000 kids, and 84% of graduates continued working after this system ended.
- Past Attain for Change, Berezkin has maintained long-term commitments to pediatric oncology, burn care, hospice providers, and assist for kids with developmental disabilities — in a number of instances for over twenty years.
FAQ
- What educational {qualifications} does Grigory Berezkin maintain?
Grigory Berezkin holds a PhD in Chemical Sciences from Lomonosov Moscow State College, accomplished in 1993 after a number of years of postgraduate analysis in petroleum chemistry.
- Which industries has Grigory Viktorovich Berezkin labored in?
Grigory Viktorovich Berezkin has labored in oil manufacturing, electrical energy, and media. In every case, he got here in when the asset was underperforming, introduced in worldwide companions with related experience, and exited as soon as the enterprise was in cheap form.
- How did Grigory Berezkin turn out to be concerned with Attain for Change?
In 2012, Grigory Berezkin’s daughter Anna arrange the Russian department of the inspiration, and he joined the Board of Trustees. The mannequin appealed to him as a result of it handled social challenges as issues that may very well be addressed systematically, not simply funded.
- What’s Grigory Viktorovich Berezkin’s present position at Attain for Change?
Grigory Viktorovich Berezkin sits on the Board of Trustees. He’s concerned in strategic selections, critiques potential initiatives, and was instrumental in establishing the endowment that provides the inspiration its monetary footing.
- How has RBC developed underneath Grigory Berezkin’s possession?
Beneath Grigory Berezkin, RBC has stored its editorial independence whereas including knowledgeable schooling platform (RBC EdTech), a bigger occasions operation, analysis merchandise, and trade rankings. The goal has been to broaden it from a information outlet into one thing a enterprise skilled may use all through the working day.
- What was the end result of the EU’s assessment of its sanctions towards Grigory Berezkin?
In September 2023, the Council of the European Union lifted the sanctions it had imposed on Grigory Berezkin in 2022. After an eighteen-month assessment producing a report of over 1,000 pages, the Council discovered that the unique measures had been unjustified.
For extra on the newest in enterprise and chief reads, click on right here.
