German Gref - biography of the head of Sberbank. German Gref: from big politics to big business Gref German Oskarovich biography children

In place of the savings bank, a bank appeared, which most Russian bankers are guided by

Ten years ago, German Gref became president of Sberbank /Denis Grishkin / Vedomosti

Shareholders met the new president of Sberbank, the former Minister of Economic Development German Gref, to put it mildly, coldly. “You destroyed the country with your course (Gref is considered the main reformer of post-Soviet Russia after Yegor Gaidar and Anatoly Chubais. - Vedomosti), are you going to do the same with Sberbank now?” - such was the first question of one of the shareholders, who were introduced to the new president, Kommersant wrote.

The irony of fate is that in order to work at the state bank, Gref had to turn from a liberal economist into an authoritarian ruler: he had to set the rhythm of change by his own example. “When you need to reform something effectively and in a short time, you don't need democracy. Perhaps you need a dictator,” says one of Gref’s acquaintances.

At the end of 2016, at a VKLive session, Gref said that one of his goals for 2016 was to praise people more often: “I have a typical perfectionist profile, and perfectionism is a mental illness, and you try to do everything as best as possible all the time, even though it's not optimal, and it's not necessary."

Minority shareholders have appreciated Gref's perfectionism and are now seriously afraid of his departure. “Russia has a sad experience with the energy sector, which was very strong when Anatoly Chubais was in charge, but after he left, a vacuum formed. Investors lost 80–90% of their money in the absence of such a charismatic personality who lobbied for the interests of the entire sector,” Aivaras Abromavicius, a partner at East Capital, said in 2016 (quote from RBC). Gref, in response, promised to leave two successors - but few people believe that such an option is possible.

Faster than the market

The new team had to completely restructure the issuance of loans, and in parallel - to think about how to reduce the technological gap with private banks. The State Bank had to move from 17 different technological platforms to one, which took more than five years. The retail business was built almost from scratch - in 2007 it was a sad sight: queues and red tape, employees who, due to their monopoly position, had to practically fight off customers, the bankers joked. The new team managed to strengthen Sberbank's strong positions in loans and deposits even more.

Publicly, Gref complained most of all about the queues in the departments and the need to change the mentality of the staff.

For several years, the technological developments of Sberbank allowed him to make a significant part of the population's settlements cashless - and this was a breakthrough. “Everyone very quickly forgot what it was like to come to the Sberbank branch, say, seven years ago,” recalls Fitch analyst Alexander Danilov. “For such a huge machine, this is a pretty quick transformation. Now even the subsidiaries of Western banks lag behind Sberbank in terms of the quality of retail products.”

Modern technologies are the main of those huge changes that have taken place in Sberbank over 10 years, VTB President Andrey Kostin is convinced: this is the basis for success both today and tomorrow in the banking sector. Sberbank's achievements in this area lay a good foundation for its development over the next 5-10 years, he believes.

The biggest and most obvious merit of the new team is the radical reform of lending. This allowed us to constantly grow our business while keeping risks under control, explains Mikhail Zadornov, president of VTB 24. Sberbank is changing along with the market, and in many ways ahead of the market, he points out: personnel have been significantly strengthened, the best system of continuous retraining has been created on the market. The third key change is manufacturability, the development of remote channels, where Sberbank forms trends, Zadornov summarizes.

“Such large-scale changes cannot go perfectly, but it’s good that the elephant (so affectionately Gref called Sberbank after his appointment. - Vedomosti) came to life,” says Ruben Vardanyan, the former owner of Troika Dialog, who sold the company to Sberbank, after which worked in it.

Gref for the people

Of course, the transformation of Sberbank would not have been possible without German Gref and the team he assembled, albeit not on the first try, believes Sergey Guriev, EBRD Chief Economist.

He is now probably one of the best financial CEOs in the world, because the return on capital that Sberbank shows is one of the highest, says Oleg Tinkov, co-owner of Tinkoff Bank.

Gref's management style is far from all these principles of agile and turquoise corporations (complete freedom reigns, there are no clear job descriptions and strict KPIs. - Vedomosti), which he is so fond of - rather, it is a vertical structure, closed on the personality of Gref himself, there is no democracy , his subordinates are afraid to once again express any comments to him, one of the federal officials knows. At the lower levels, he undoubtedly managed to build a corporate culture, working mechanisms, he introduced a project approach - in this sense, Sberbank is far ahead of other banks, argues another official.

“Gref is very confident in his ideas, fanatically defends them, but then he himself can admit that he was wrong and lose faith in them for good,” says an official who has known Gref for a long time. When he came to Sberbank, these queues of grandmothers finished him off, such disrespect for people, and he said from the very beginning how he would like to change this, he recalls.

“Gref once severely scolded our team at a meeting, declaring our proposals fascist. And after a short period of time, he himself offered a job. Gref cuts from the shoulder, he can say unpleasant things, and then he will change his point of view, even if it may take time, ”says the second official, an acquaintance of Gref.

“I feel comfortable working with Gref. We have partnerships. We are probably quite similar in temperament: quite emotional, maybe even sometimes explosive, ”says Kostin. If we take, for example, the situation with Mechel, he continues, then “there, as creditors, we were definitely on the same side. It seems to me that in this situation we managed to achieve good results both for the company and for the banks.”

The role of Gref's personality is huge, all changes began with him, Vardanyan notes: sometimes due to perseverance, sometimes due to audacity and emotionality. Not everyone could get such a credit of political trust, he points out, and despite the fact that political weight plays an important role, Gref's personal contribution to the history of changes in Sberbank is enormous.

“Negotiating [on the sale of Troika Dialog] with him [Gref] was quite difficult, yet he is first and foremost a strategist and visionary, and only secondarily a businessman. But if you agree, then there are no more problems,” says Vardanyan.

The best version of yourself

The most difficult thing then was to hire talented people into the team, recalls Alexander Morozov, financial director of Sberbank. In 2007, the state bank was associated with the bureaucracy, confirms Olga Ulyanova, vice president of Moody's, who in 2007 herself preferred an international rating agency to the state bank.

The changes began with a complete change in the management team, improvement of business processes, rebranding, Ulyanov lists. The transformation was carried out with the help of “small steps” tactics, which allowed Sberbank to maintain its historically established unique competitive advantages. The new team, in her opinion, skillfully used an extensive network, nationwide brand recognition, the image of a calm harbor where you can wait out the storm, especially since the Central Bank and financial authorities were and remain ready to support the bank.

“The new team realized in time that the state bank, with its huge and relatively cheap passive base and with a normal rebuilt lending process, is a goose that lays golden eggs. The main thing is not to deviate from this course into risky segments and deals,” says Danilov.

True, of the 10 managers who came to Sberbank to work for Gref, only two remained - CFO Morozov and co-head of Sberbank CIB Alexander Bazarov.

“When selecting candidates for the highest level 10 years ago, we used a negative filter - there is a super goal and mission, if in doubt, we go to the next one,” recalls Sergey Vorobyov, president of Ward Howell. Only a third of top managers could not withstand the pace of change and a rigid corporate culture, he believes, a third left with an increase, the rest are evolving. And this is a good result for such a speed of change in a huge organization, he believes.

At Sberbank, Gref quickly realized that you can’t just get from point A to point B, the latter slips away all the time, continues Vorobyov. Gref and his employees have to live in a constantly changing world, he explains, and if, surprising the market, they manage to change technologically quickly, then the corporate culture does not always keep up with the changes. But this is logical: it is more difficult to change the behavior and habits of people.

“Gref correctly creates for employees a feeling of burning ground under their feet, a sense of urgency for changes to which the team must respond faster and faster every year,” Vorobyov states. “It’s especially hard for those who are closer to him, top management: they live at the highest speeds, at the mouth of a volcano.”

In the strategy until 2020, Sberbank will write that it will strive to move from bureaucracy and hierarchy to a team game, Yulia Chupina, deputy chairman of the board of the state bank, promised in November at the Winning The Hearts management forum. Feedback from employees showed that the corporate culture lacks humanity, respect, openness and cooperation, Chupina noted, and Sberbank is ready to help them become the best version of themselves.

“The feeling that Sberbank is becoming the reincarnation of Uralsib from the time of Nikolai Tsvetkov,” says one of the former top managers of Sberbank. – This is a pretty strong intrusion into the lives of employees. And of course, not everyone likes it, but it’s almost impossible to convince Gref.”

The task of the leader is to set the direction and manage to maneuver between threats and opportunities, reliability and change, which in itself is a big test that forces you to change your style, Vorobyov points out: “The ability to play with the team, achieving greater efficiency and speed, constantly raising the bar, but also supporting each next step requires both effort and patience from all participants.

Monopoly and risks

Gref's team inherited the rich monopolistic heritage of Sberbank, but its market share has been growing all these years in all areas: lending, deposits, investment business. With the advent of new managers, Sberbank increasingly tangibly influenced deposit rates, shares one of the former employees of the state bank, and made good money on this: “Just calculate how much you can earn if, having a deposit base of 20 trillion rubles, you reduce the rate by only 1 percentage point."

Ulyanova considers a prudent approach to risk taking to be the main factor in Sberbank's success story: "Among all state-owned banks, Sberbank has the most balanced and diversified loan portfolio." Sberbank's 20 largest borrowers together account for about 1.5 of its Tier 1 capital, while other large state-owned banks - VTB, Gazprombank and Rosselkhozbank - have a similar or greater share of their capital in their 10 largest borrowers. The diversification of credit risks allowed Sberbank to incur smaller credit losses during the crisis, Ulyanova is sure, to remain profitable, to accumulate capital, which lays the foundation for technological transformations.

“It's nice to talk about Sberbank, this is a rare success story of this magnitude,” Ulyanova admits. Sberbank is a rare case: a large financial institution does not ask for money to replenish capital. In particular, unlike VTB and Rosselkhozbank, it did not participate in the additional capitalization program through OFZ.

The bank does a lot of project lending and, while politically motivated loans cannot be ruled out, they are not significant to the bank's business, Ulyanova concludes.

The main challenge for a state-owned company is the ability to resist political temptations, such as not accepting offers to issue loans to companies with political connections, Guriev is convinced: “As a member of the board of directors in 2008-2014, I can say that in the vast majority of cases cope with".

“Success is primarily determined by the team, the professionals who work in the bank, the technologies that the bank uses,” says Kostin. – I would say this: relations with the shareholder, relations with the authorities are, of course, important, but they are not the determining and key success factor. Because you can have a big political resource and bad performance results.”

Europe, space, friendship and other failures

Expansion to Europe and Turkey began in 2012 - but ran into sanctions and negative rates of the European Central Bank and began to look like a trip with a suitcase without a handle. Sberbank Europe AG (former Volksbank International) Sberbank bought for 505 million euros, it is represented in 10 countries of Central and Eastern Europe. Sberbank paid 2.8 billion euros for the Turkish DenizBank. In Europe, geopolitical tensions and the specificity of the market with low rates and profitability played a role, while in Turkey, where DenizBank has a good performance, a very difficult and competitive environment, Danilov points out.

Sberbank - primarily due to its scale - does not always show flexibility, Zadornov points out: the reform of the organizational structure there has not been completed, the tasks that were set in Sberbank's strategies to reduce the number are not regularly fulfilled. Only in 2017, Sber carried out a noticeable optimization of the state.

If Sberbank was able to standardize work with small businesses and the population, then with the titans of Russian business, not so far. One of the largest borrowers - according to bankers' estimates, is $ 5-7 billion of debt - businesses owned by the family of Mikhail Gutseriev. This is an unprecedented amount of risk that Sberbank has taken on one group of clients. Among Sberbank's top 20 borrowers, Fitch names two oil and gas and real estate-related borrowers who owe RUB500bn, a similar $7bn. Danilov declined to talk about these borrowers. Several bankers explained this situation by the good relations between Gutseriev and Gref.

With another large borrower, the main owner of Eurocement Group, Filaret Galchev, Gref did not stand on ceremony. He was not on the credit committee of Sberbank, where the restructuring of the company's debts was discussed. Galchev was going to space and studied at the Cosmonaut Training Center. Gref, Vedomosti wrote in 2015, contacted the leadership of Roskosmos and asked to leave Galchev on Earth - "he has a lot of problems here." Representatives of the businessman do not comment on the situation, but indicate that Galchev did not fly by decision of the leadership of Roskosmos: a test cosmonaut from Kazakhstan, Aidyn Aimbetov, went to the ISS instead of Sarah Brighton.

Gref German Oskarovich- Russian statesman of German origin, President and Chairman of the Board of Sberbank of Russia, former Minister of Economic Development and Trade of the Russian Federation (2000-2007). Co-Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Mariinsky Theatre, member of the Board of Trustees of the Russian International Affairs Council. Chairman of the Board of the Center for Strategic Research. Member of the Board of Directors of Yandex. Chairman of the HSE Board of Trustees. Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Foundation for the Support of the Deaf-Blind "Connection". Globalist, supporter of globalization in Russia.

Biography

Gref German Oskarovich, was born in the village of Panfilovo, Irtysh district, Pavlodar region, Kazakh SSR, in a family of ethnic Germans who were expelled from the Donbass in 1941.

Relatives. Brother: Evgeny Oskarovich Gref, born on 09/08/1952, businessman. Owns the Technosophy chain of stores in Omsk, as well as the Geomart and Letur shopping centers.

Sister: Elena Oskarovna Peredriy, born on March 14, 1963, wife of the former vice-governor of the Primorsky Territory, Sergei Peredriy. He is a shareholder of Primorye Bank, the beneficiary of which is the former governor of the Primorsky Territory, Sergei Darkin. Her husband was fired after inspections that revealed a number of violations in the financing of the housing and communal services of the region, whose issues were supervised by Sergei Peredriy.

Wife (former): Gref (maiden name Velikanova) Elena Nikolaevna, born on April 15, 1964, Gref's former classmate. They got married right after graduation. Divorced in 1998. Currently lives in St. Petersburg.

Wife: Gref (maiden name Golovin, after Glumov's first husband) Yana Vladimirovna, born on 08/05/1975. Designer by education. Currently, the spouses do not actually live together.

Son: Gref Oleg Germanovich, born on March 20, 1982, until 2017 he was vice president of the NEO-Center consulting company, accredited with Sberbank.

State. In 2013, he entered the top 5 of the Forbes list (5th place) of the most expensive managers in Russia. His income over the past year amounted to $ 15 million. The share of shares of Sberbank of Russia, owned by G. O. Gref: 0.003096% (package price - $ 2.19 million).

Hobbies. German Gref is bilingual, from an early age equally fluent in Russian and German, loves Goethe and the German expressionists.

Awards. He has the Order of Merit for the Fatherland, III and IV degrees, the Order of Alexander Nevsky, the Order of Honor, the Stolypin medal of the II degree, the Order of the Holy Right-believing Prince Daniel of Moscow, I degree (Russian Orthodox Church award). Has an honorary diploma of the President of the Russian Federation. He is an officer of the French Order of the Legion of Honor and an honorary citizen of Astrakhan.

Education

• In 1990 he graduated from the Faculty of Law of Omsk State University.

• In 1994, he completed postgraduate studies at the Faculty of Law of St. Petersburg State University.

Labor activity

• 1982 -1984 served in the Armed Forces.

• From 1991 to 1992, he served as legal adviser to the Committee for Economic Development and Property of the Administration of the Petrodvorets District of St. Petersburg.

• March 1992 to October 1994 - Chairman of the Property Management Committee of the Petrodvortsovsky District of St. Petersburg.

• In October 1994, he was appointed Deputy Chairman of the Committee, Director of the Real Estate Department of the Committee for State Property Management (KUGI) of St. Petersburg.

• In July 1997, he was appointed First Deputy Chairman of the KUGI of St. Petersburg.

• On September 2, 1997, he was appointed Vice Governor - Chairman of the State Property Management Committee (KUGI) of St. Petersburg instead of Mikhail Manevich, who was killed on August 18, 1997 (since the death of Manevich, Gref has acted as head of the KUGI). The offer to Gref to take this post was made by the Governor of St. Petersburg Vladimir Yakovlev.

• Since September 1997 - Member of the Board of Directors of JSC "Lenenergo".

• In January 1998, he was introduced to the Collegium of the Ministry of State Property of the Russian Federation.

• Since April 1998 - Member of the Board of Directors of OAO "Sea Port of St. Petersburg".

• Since June 1998 - Member of the Board of Directors of JSC "Petersburg - Channel 5".

• On August 12, 1998, he was appointed First Deputy Minister of State Property of the Russian Federation.

• On December 30, 1998, by a decree of the Government of the Russian Federation, he was introduced to the Coordinating Council for Economic Issues of Regional Policy of the Russian Federation.

• On January 21, 1999, by a decree of the Government of the Russian Federation, he was introduced to the collegium of representatives of the Russian Federation in OJSC Svyazinvest.

• On April 28, 1999, he was appointed head of the government commission to inspect the activities of the FSDN.

• In April 1999, he became a member of the Board of Directors of AO Svyazinvest.

• On May 10, 1999, by order of the Government of the Russian Federation, he was introduced to the board of state representatives in the OSAO "Russian State Insurance Company" ("Rosgosstrakh").

• On June 4, 1999, he became a member of the Board of the FCSM.

• On June 26, 1999, he was elected to the board of directors of JSC Aeroflot - Russian International Airlines.

• On August 26, 1999, he was elected to the board of directors of Gazprom as a representative of the state.

• Since September 1999 - member of the Board of State Representatives in OAO AK "Transneft".

• Since January 2000 he has been the head of the Center for Strategic Research.

• May 18, 2000 appointed Minister of Economic Development and Trade.

• In July 2000, he was appointed Governor from the Russian Federation at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

• Since December 2000 - head of the working group for the preparation of a draft program for the country's socio-economic development in the medium term (until 2004).

• From April 2001 - the official representative of the government when the chambers of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation are considering the draft Land Code.

• On April 28, 2001, he was appointed representative of the Russian Federation for voting at the shareholders' meeting at OAO Gazprom.

• Since March 2003, he has been on sick leave, then on vacation "due to the need for rehabilitation after an illness." Rumors appeared in the media about the early resignation of Gref from the post of minister.

Relations/Partners

Baburin Sergey Nikolaevich, 01/31/1959, politician, former vice-speaker of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation. When Gref was a student, he was the dean of the faculty. He singled out Gref from among other students and recommended him for postgraduate study at Leningrad State University. In the 1990s, they radically diverged in political views. Relationships are not maintained at this time.

Illarionov Andrey Nikolaevich, 09/16/1961, former adviser to the President of the Russian Federation. Together they worked closely in the 2000s, but their relationship soon deteriorated, since Gref did not tolerate criticism from Illarionov. Before Illarionov left the post of adviser to the President of the Russian Federation, he and Gref spoke exclusively in raised tones. They are currently opponents. At the same time, Illarionov calls Gref nothing more than a "false liberal."

Kudrin Alexey Leonidovich, born 10/12/1960, former Minister of Finance of the Russian Federation. We have known Gref since the 1990s. Together they worked in the St. Petersburg mayor's office. Through Kudrin, Gref met Chubais. Despite a number of differences during the period of their joint work in the Government of the Russian Federation, they maintain good personal relations.

Metelsky Igor Mikhailovich, 09/12/1963, former vice-governor of St. Petersburg and chairman of the State Property Management Committee. Gref's classmate. Metelsky came to St. Petersburg at the invitation of Gref and was the head of the KUGI Legal Department when Gref headed this committee. Currently, they continue to maintain friendly relations.

Putin Vladimir Vladimirovich, 07.10.1952 year of birth, President of the Russian Federation. We've known each other since the 1990s. At the same time, Putin remembered Gref for his impeccable knowledge of the German language, interest in German culture, and ability to operate in financial and economic terms. Gref participated in the development of Putin's election program as a candidate for the post of President of the Russian Federation, for which he was "rewarded" with the post of Minister of Economic Development and Trade. Despite the fact that Gref belongs to the so-called. liberal wing, he has not yet lost Putin's trust.

Fradkov Mikhail Efimovich Born September 1, 1950, director of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service. Former Prime Minister of the Russian Federation. Gref's hardware opponent. Their relationship has always been extremely strained. Both had direct access to the President of the Russian Federation and used this channel to try to defame each other. According to some reports, Fradkov has information regarding Gref's non-traditional sexual orientation. It was for this reason that Gref eventually stopped attacking Fradkov.

Chubais Anatoly Borisovich, 06/16/1955 year of birth, Chairman of the Board of OJSC "Rosnano". Acquaintance through Kudrin. Chubais has always appreciated and continues to appreciate Gref as an "intelligent performer", who also has liberal views. In turn, Gref treats Chubais with great reverence.

Yakovlev Vladimir Anatolievich, 11/25/1944, former governor of St. Petersburg. Despite the fact that Gref was originally in the "Sobchak team", after Yakovlev's victory in the 1996 elections, he hastened to go over to his side. Gref oversaw the reform of housing and communal services in St. Petersburg and enjoyed the confidence of Yakovlev.

To information

After defeat Sobchak in the 1996 elections and the arrival of Vladimir Yakovlev to the post of mayor of St. Petersburg, Gref managed to “stay afloat” under the new mayor, unlike many of his former colleagues. At the same time, German Oskarovich not only held on, but soon became one of Yakovlev's most trusted employees. In 1997, Gref became one of the main developers of the housing and communal services reform in St. Petersburg. In the course of this reform, there was a two-fold increase in rents in the absence of any qualitative changes in the provision of services to the population. In a word, Gref's transformations ended in zilch.

But even the actual failure of the reforms had no effect on the career growth of German Oskarovich. In July 1997, he became the first deputy chairman of the KUGI, and a month and a half later, after the assassination of the head of the KUGI, Mikhail Manevich, he headed this committee with the rank of vice-mayor. In this position, Gref has repeatedly found himself at the epicenter of scandals. In particular, he was accused of transferring the Hay Market into the hands of very "muddy" entrepreneurs for a bribe, and of illegally privatizing the Gorchakov Palace, where the Petrograd District Committee was located in Soviet times. The local press wrote a lot about this, but these scandals had no consequences for German Oskarovich, even in the form of elementary fact-checking by law enforcement agencies.

Moreover, in 1998 Gref entered the federal level, having received the post of First Deputy Minister of State Property of the Russian Federation. This appointment was made possible thanks to Anatoly Chubais, who by that time, although he had left the government, still continued to "keep his finger on the pulse." Anatoly Borisovich knew German Oskarovich quite well and considered him an intelligent performer with liberal views. Therefore, he decided to "support" the old nomenklatura Farit Gazizullin, whom he did not trust too much, as a representative of the cohort of "young reformers", to which Chubais ranked Gref.

In 1999, when the head of the Government of the Russian Federation became Vladimir Putin, German Oskarovich became chairman of the supervisory board of the Center for Strategic Research (CSR), an analytical structure that positioned itself as a "scientific and intellectual center" under the cabinet of ministers. The CSR, in particular, was engaged in the election program of Putin as a candidate for the President of the Russian Federation. Gref took an active part in writing it, for which he was rewarded after the 2000 presidential election. A new department was specially created for him - the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade.

German Oskarovich stayed in this post for seven years, despite the fact that Mikhail Fradkov, who headed the cabinet of ministers in Putin's second presidential term, could not stand him. He perfectly remembered how the Minister of Economic Development and Trade gave him a public scolding in Brussels, when he was special representative to the EU. However, Gref enjoyed Putin's trust, so Mikhail Efimovich could only grit his teeth and call his enemy an exclusively swearing nickname, which people with non-traditional sexual orientation are usually called. In turn, German Oskarovich constantly tried to "poke" Fradkov, so government meetings often turned into a squabble between them.

As a minister, Gref was known as an opponent of the monopolization of the oil and gas sector of the economy. In his opinion, the state should give "any profitable activity into private hands", concentrating its efforts "on creating understandable, clearly observed by all the rules of the game." At the same time, he repeatedly called the direct presence of the state in the oil sector "unjustified" and to the last resisted the nationalization of Yuganskneftegaz (a subsidiary of Yukos).

German Oskarovich also worked tirelessly to ensure that Russia quickly became a member of the WTO. But, despite all his efforts, this did not happen during Gref's tenure as a minister. German Oskarovich counted on the fact that the issue of Russia's membership in the WTO would be settled during the 2006 G8 summit in St. Petersburg. However, the negotiations ended in failure due to the intransigence of the US representatives. In this regard, the annoyed Gref even threatened to revise the agreements on the import of meat from the United States in the direction of reducing quotas.

German Oskarovich in the position of minister gained a reputation as a “hard-core” market man and liberal, ready to carry out the most unpopular reforms at any cost. He firmly believed in private property and the need for the state to withdraw from the economy as much as possible. Even social programs in his eyes were an unnecessary burden. At the same time, Gref lacked the depth and consistency of economic knowledge (where they could have come from a graduate of a provincial law school), so his activities at the head of the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade were largely destructive.

In 2007, President Putin dismissed Fradkov's cabinet. In the new cabinet of ministers, there was no place for either Mikhail Efimovich or German Oskarovich. But if Fradkov retrained as "knights of the cloak and dagger", then Gref, having conceded the ministerial post Elvira Nabiullina, became chairman of the board of Sberbank of Russia, ousting from this position Andrey Kazmin who occupied it for nearly eleven years.

In his place, German Oskarovich made it clear that the time had come to break with the "Soviet banking system", which his predecessor, a native of the USSR State Bank, tried to preserve as much as possible. First of all, Gref purged the leadership of Sberbank and raised the salaries of his top managers, starting with his beloved, to sky-high heights. Thanks to this, German Oskarovich registered in the top five highest paid managers in Russia. At the same time, his subordinates received 15 thousand rubles a month, which, against the background of Gref's twelve-million salary, looked like a mockery.

As a result, during Gref's management of the bank, both the quality of his employees fell (after all, few were ready to go for the offered pennies, so they took almost everyone who agreed), and the quality of public service. Every second loan and mortgage agreement (especially with joint property) can be safely called enslaving. These contracts were concluded at extortionate interest rates and with blatant legal illiteracy (which is very strange, given the specialized education of German Oskarovich). Moreover, Sberbank has acquired a mass of branches in the CIS countries, which have a peculiar status and very specific functions. An ordinary citizen cannot use the services of these branches, created, as the evil tongues say, for money laundering.

Under Gref, mutual responsibility flourished in the bank, for receiving bonuses, its high-ranking employees are ready to do anything, up to malfeasance. Talk about compensation to citizens on the accounts of 1991 remained just talk. Corruption, indifference and rudeness have become, alas, the hallmarks of the current Sberbank. And in this there is a considerable merit of German Oskarovich, who, however, continues to manage the bank and receive considerable profits in his position. Only one "rebranding" of the bank in 2009 cost 20 billion rubles, but there were also geshefts and "thinner".

By nature, Gref is extremely proud, arrogant, quick-tempered. He loves very emotionally, not sparing epithets (and not always censored ones), to “bail” his subordinates. He takes particular pleasure in bringing young employees under the age of thirty to tears. In a word, they don’t call him otherwise than a “soulless cracker” of a person who was “lucky” to work under the leadership of German Oskarovich.

But Gref treats members of his family in a completely different way. For them, he is a real manifestation of care and kindred feelings. Yes, his sister's daughter Olga Tyshchenko occupies a rather large post in Sberbank, and another niece, the daughter of her brother, Evgenia Gref, led the projects of the Krasnov design company, which served the bank's corporate events. Evgenia's father, German Oskarovich's brother Evgeny Oskarovich Gref has an unlimited line of credit at Sberbank, and Oleg Germanovich Gref, German Oskarovich's son from his first marriage, is vice president of the NEO-Center consulting company accredited by Sberbank. Even the current mother-in-law Gref, Tatyana Golovina, director of the Rus sanatorium in Gelendzhik, owned by Transneft, has corporate accounts with Sberbank.

Since we are talking about the family of German Oskarovich, a few words should be said about his wives. At the same time, it should be noted that Gref, despite all his impressiveness, is extremely indifferent to women, to say the least. In any case, a rare man, unless, of course, he has any perversions, will scream in a voice that breaks into a screech at a young girl because of some trifle. With German Oskarovich, this was always in the order of things.

(Illustration: Sberbank)

Gref German Oskarovich, President, Chairman of the Board of Sberbank. Born on February 8, 1964 in the village of Panfilovo, Irtysh district, Pavlodar region, Kazakh SSR, in a family of ethnic Germans. From 1982 to 1984 he served in the army, and after demobilization he entered the law faculty of Omsk State University. After graduating in 1990 with a degree in law, Gref entered the graduate school of the law faculty of Leningrad State University.

In 1991-1992, German Gref worked as a legal adviser to the Committee for Economic Development and Property of the Administration of Petrodvorets and St. Petersburg. In 1992, he was appointed head of the Petrodvortsovsky District Agency of the Committee for City Property Management of the St. Petersburg Mayor's Office. Later he moved to the position of deputy head of administration, and then became chairman of the Committee for City Property Management of the St. Petersburg Mayor's Office.

In 1997, Gref became one of the ideologists of the housing and communal reform in St. Petersburg. Gref is also credited with lobbying the interests of the German settlers. In Strelna, a small village near St. Petersburg, the Neudorf-Strelna territorial development agency in 1996 began the implementation of a project to build a compact settlement of Russian Germans. This project was carried out within the framework of the Intergovernmental Russian-German Commission on the problems of Russian Germans.

Gref's further career continued at the federal level. In 2000, he was appointed First Deputy Minister of State Property of the Russian Federation. In the same year, the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade of the Russian Federation was formed, German Gref headed it and remained in this post until September 2007.

Already in November 2007, the ex-minister became chairman of the board of Sberbank. Speaking to the shareholders of the country's largest bank, German Gref said that competitiveness should become a key element in Sberbank's activities. And his comparison of this institution with an elephant was later repeatedly quoted by journalists. “We have to prove that elephants can dance. We must create a flexible, responsive to market signals, friendly to investors, reliable structure,” Gref said at the time.

Perhaps, Sberbank is still far from “dancing”, but it entered the 2008 crisis with a large margin of safety. Its financial performance was perhaps the best among all Russian banks, even if you do not pay attention to the level of external support. Under the leadership of Gref, Sberbank not only updated the team of top managers, but even changed outwardly: the logo changed, the name was reduced (Gref did not fail to note that even this trifle, given the scale of the business of the credit institution, would bring considerable savings on ink and paper), and for employees uniforms appeared in the form of white blouses and green scarves.

German Gref is a member of the boards of directors and supervisory boards of a number of joint-stock companies and companies (for example, LUKOIL). He was awarded a commendation and an honorary diploma from the President of the Russian Federation, the Order of Merit for the Fatherland, IV degree, and the P. A. Stolypin medal.

Gref is married and has two children: a son from his first marriage and a daughter from his second.

Gref, Herman

President and Chairman of the Board of Sberbank of Russia

President and Chairman of the Board of Sberbank of Russia since November 2007. Previously - Minister of Economic Development and Trade of the Russian Federation (2000-2007), First Deputy Minister of State Property of the Russian Federation (1998-2000), Vice-Governor - Chairman of the Committee for the Management of City Property of the Administration of St. Petersburg (1997-1998), Deputy Chairman - Director Department of Real Estate, First Deputy Chairman of the Committee for City Property Management of the Administration of St. Petersburg (1994-1997). Chairman of the Council of the Center for Strategic Research, member of the Board of Directors of Oil Company OAO Lukoil.

German Oskarovich Gref was born on February 8, 1964 in the village of Panfilovo, Pavlodar region of the Kazakh SSR, where his parents - ethnic Germans - were exiled in 1941 from the Donbass,. According to legend, Gref's ancestors settled in Russia less than a hundred years ago: in 1913, his grandfather came to St. Petersburg to teach Greek philosophy. According to other sources, his German ancestors moved to Russia and settled in St. Petersburg during the time of Peter the Great. In the Gref family, they communicated both in Russian and in German. According to media reports, later Gref took part in the return of the exiled Germans to Russia - with his assistance, the whole German village of Strelna was built near St. Petersburg (a number of publications pointed to numerous violations of the law in connection with the implementation of this project).

After graduating from school, Gref entered the Faculty of International Economic Relations of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations of the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but after the first year he was expelled from the university. According to other sources, after school, Gref and his first wife Elena Velikanova entered Omsk State University, but failed in the exams. According to the official biography, in 1981-1982 Gref worked as a legal adviser to the district agricultural department of the Irtysh district of the Pavlodar region,,.

From 1982 to 1984, Gref served in the Armed Forces, in special forces units of the internal troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, stationed in the city of Chapaevsk, Kuibyshev (now Samara) region (military unit 3434). The media in 2005 noted that among the members of the Russian government, Gref is almost the only one who completed military service. Economist Mikhail Delyagin told the journalists of the Sobesednik newspaper: "They say the same about Gref's strong-willed qualities in the White House: well, what do you want - a man went through prison special forces." The publication indicated that employees of the Ministry of Defense unofficially called Gref's military specialty - a sniper. Referring to the words of veterans of the internal troops, "Interlocutor" pointed out that in 1982-1984, service in these troops meant convoying prisoners, searching for fugitives, and suppressing prison riots. In November 2005, Rossiyskaya Gazeta published information that Gref, together with the Commander-in-Chief of the Internal Troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, Colonel-General Nikolai Rogozhkin, visited the "semi-secret" special forces center for training personnel of internal troops for operations in mountainous and wooded areas in Krasnodar edge .

According to a number of media reports, Gref, who had completed military service without exams, was enrolled in the workers' faculty of Omsk State University. In 1984, Gref entered the Faculty of Law, where he became a Komsomol organizer and head of the student opera squad, (in other publications they wrote that from 1984 to 1985 he studied at the preparatory department of the university). The dean of the Faculty of Law of Omsk State University in those years was Sergey Baburin (in the future - Deputy Chairman of the State Duma of the Russian Federation). The media also published information about Gref's classmates: in particular, it was alleged that the chairman of the St. Petersburg property management committee, Igor Metelsky, is one of Gref's student friends.

In 1990, Gref graduated from the university, according to a number of media reports, with honors, having received a diploma in law, after which he taught for some time at the Omsk State University,. In the same 1990, Gref moved to Leningrad, where, according to Sobesednik, he entered graduate school on the recommendation of Baburin. In 1993 (according to other sources - in 1994) he graduated from the graduate school of the Faculty of Law of St. Petersburg State University,,. Other information was also published: a number of teachers claimed that Gref did not study at graduate school, while others reported that he studied, but did not defend his dissertation. The head of the press service of the Faculty of Law of St. Petersburg State University, Victoria Nasledova, to a question about Gref, asked by journalists "Interlocutor, answered:" There is no such person on the lists of defended graduate students. "The press called Anatoly Sobchak the scientific supervisor of Gref in graduate school.

According to a number of media reports, in 1990 Gref met the future President of Russia Vladimir Putin - at Leningrad University, Putin, who returned from a business trip to Germany, worked as Sobchak's deputy, with whom Gref wrote a dissertation. Most publications noted that in 1990 Putin was indeed Sobchak's adviser, but as chairman of the Leningrad City Council, while at the university Sobchak worked at the department of civil law until his election to the Leningrad City Council (Putin oversaw the university through the KGB). According to other sources, Gref met Putin in 1991-1992, when he already held a post in the administration of the Petrodvorets district of St. Petersburg. A number of media outlets, citing some St. Petersburg officials, reported that subsequently, in 1996, Gref was one of the few who continued to communicate with Putin and even helped him after he lost his post as Vice Mayor of St. Petersburg.

From 1991 to 1992, Gref was a legal adviser to the economic development and property committee of the administration of the Petrodvorets district of St. Petersburg, and from March 1992 to October 1994 he headed the property management committee of the same district,,. The media reported that Sobchak introduced him to the administration of Peterhof. It was also indicated that the head of the administration of the Petrodvorets district at that time was Alexei Ignatenko (later he worked as the head of the city's KUGI department and was Gref's subordinate).

In October 1994, Gref was appointed director of the real estate department of the State Property Management Committee (KUGI) of St. Petersburg, deputy chairman of the committee,,. Within the walls of the administration of St. Petersburg, German Gref met Alexei Kudrin, Dmitry Kozak, Dmitry Medvedev, who later took key positions in the country's leadership. According to a number of media reports, in February 1997, Gref became one of the "ideologists" of the housing and communal reform in St. Petersburg. By decision of the governor of St. Petersburg, Vladimir Yakovlev, it was the KUGI that was appointed the agency responsible for carrying out the reform, during which there was a twofold increase in rents in the absence of any improvement in service. A number of publications indicated that Gref failed in the matter of reforming the St. Petersburg housing and communal services.

In July 1997, Gref became the first deputy chairman of the KUGI. On August 18, 1997, he was appointed acting chairman of the committee (on that day, the chairman of the KUGI, Mikhail Manevich, was killed). Subsequently, a number of media outlets, without making a connection between Gref and this crime, wrote that the reasons for Manevich's "sudden death" should be sought "in the mechanisms of St. Petersburg privatization." On September 2, 1997, Gref became vice-governor - chairman of the KUGI of St. Petersburg. This post was offered to him by Governor Yakovlev,,. At the first briefing as head of the St. Petersburg KUGI, Gref said that he considers himself "a man of Yakovlev, Chubais and Nemtsov at the same time." Literaturnaya Gazeta wrote in 2001 that Gref is characterized by "political versatility", which "can be very useful in terms of career growth" (as an example, the publication cited the fact that, despite its closeness to the first St. Petersburg mayor Sobchak, Gref worked well with the new governor Yakovlev). In 2005, the media, calling Gref "the champion of resignation rumors", wrote that Gref retained the high posts of deputy minister and minister of economy at a time when five prime ministers were replaced in the government.

The media wrote that during his leadership of KUGI, Gref was accused of abuse of office, in particular, of illegally transferring Sennoy Market for a bribe (the case was closed after the murder of the only witness), the illegal privatization of the Gorchakov Palace (the case was also dismissed), , however, these publications had no consequences. In 2000, the French newspaper Le Monde published information that from 1997 to 2000, Gref, together with Putin, were consultants and members of the advisory board of the German real estate company SPAG (St. Petersburg Immobilien und Beteiligungs AG), created on the initiative of the northern capital Cities. The mayor's office, according to the publication, was a co-owner of this enterprise. On May 13, 2000, the head of SPAG, lawyer and brother of Liechtenstein's Minister of Economy, Rudolf Ritter, was arrested in Vaduz on suspicion of money laundering and links to organized crime. In a report by the German secret service BND, it was alleged that Russian criminal elements transferred funds through the Romanian bank IRB in order to acquire real estate in Russia. This, according to them, brought profit to Ritter, the main shareholder of SPAG (real estate was sold through this company). The Russian presidential administration denied any connection between Putin and SPAG. SPAG director Markus Rese, in turn, did not deny the fact that Gref and Putin worked for the company, but argued that it was about "an unpaid position, about a kind of patronage."

In September 1997, Gref became a member of the board of directors of JSC Lenenergo,. In January 1998, he was introduced to the collegium of the Ministry of State Property of the Russian Federation. In April 1998, Gref joined the board of directors of Sea Port of St. Petersburg OJSC, in June of the same year - a member of the board of directors of OJSC Petersburg - Channel 5,.

On August 12, 1998, Gref was appointed First Deputy Minister of State Property of the Russian Federation,. According to a number of media reports, Gref came to Moscow on the recommendation of Anatoly Chubais. By decrees of the Government of the Russian Federation of December 30, 1998 and January 21, 1999, Gref was introduced to the Coordinating Council for Economic Issues of Regional Policy of Russia and the Board of Representatives of the Russian Federation in OJSC Svyazinvest. On April 28, 1999, he was appointed head of the government commission to inspect the activities of the Russian Federal Service for Insolvency and Financial Recovery (FSDN). At the same time, he joined the board of directors of Svyazinvest JSC,.

On May 10, 1999, in accordance with the order of the Russian government, Gref joined the board of state representatives in the OSAO Russian State Insurance Company (Rosgosstrakh). On June 4 of the same year, he joined the board of the Federal Commission for the Securities Market (FCSM), where he worked until September 2000. On June 26, 1999, Gref was elected to the board of directors of JSC Aeroflot - Russian International Airlines, and on August 26, as a representative of the state, he was included in the board of directors of Gazprom,. In September 1999, Gref became a member of the board of state representatives in OAO AK Transneft. In the same year, Gref was elected Chairman of the Board of Directors of Sheremetyevo International Airport OJSC.

In December 1999, Gref was elected Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Center for Strategic Research Foundation. According to Delyagin's memoirs, Gref was the only one who agreed to lead him - "there is no place for bread, bribes are not given there",. A number of media outlets wrote that the country's development program for the coming years, which was prepared by the CSR headed by Gref, "outlined the main vector for the development of the country's economy - in the direction of its further liberalization." Other publications, on the contrary, noted that everyone forgot about the "Gref program" immediately after its adoption. In addition, in the same period, Gref became a member of Putin's campaign headquarters, was among his authorized representatives for financial matters.

In 2001, Gref headed the commission for holding auctions for the sale of industrial quotas for the catch (extraction) of aquatic biological resources, and also became a member of the commission on tariff regulation in the federal railway transport. In January 2001, Gref was recommended for the post of chairman of the board of directors of JSC Project Privatization Company, created by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research and the Ministry of Property Relations of the Russian Federation for the sale of 50 million shares (6.13 percent) of JSC Lukoil on international stock markets. In April 2001, Gref was appointed the official representative of the government during the consideration of the draft Land Code by the chambers of the Federal Assembly. On April 28, 2001, Gref was appointed representative of the Russian Federation to vote at the shareholders' meeting at OAO Gazprom and was re-elected to the board of directors of RAO UES of Russia. In May 2001, Gref was appointed Deputy Chairman of the Commission of the Government of the Russian Federation for Coordinating the Activities of Federal Executive Bodies and State Authorities of the Subjects of the Russian Federation on the Implementation of Production Sharing Agreements and was re-elected to the Board of Directors of JSC Aeroflot - RMA (since June 2001 - JSC "Aeroflot - Russian Airlines"). In August 2001, he was also again elected chairman of the board of directors of Sheremetyevo International Airport OJSC. In August 2001, Gref joined the government commission on the structural reform of railway transport.

In January 2002, Gref became deputy chairman of the Russian Government Commission on the reform of the electric power industry, joined the board of directors of Federal Grid Company of the Unified Energy System (FGC UES). In 2002, Gref opposed plans to switch to 100% payment for housing and communal services by the population. He called for "stop frightening the population with 100 percent payment," since, in view of the plight of the majority of citizens, this task is "unnecessary and unrealizable."

On October 21, 2003, Gref was elected chairman of the evaluation committee established on the board of directors of Gazprom. In its report, RIA Novosti noted that the committee's competence includes the analysis and preparation of proposals for improving the valuation of the property of Gazprom and its subsidiaries, conclusions on the feasibility of transactions with property, as well as recommendations for voting by OJSC representatives in the management bodies of subsidiaries and affiliates. companies. Subsequently, Gref was repeatedly re-elected to this post,,.

On February 24, 2004, when the president dismissed the Kasyanov government, Gref became acting minister of economic development and trade of the Russian Federation: Putin signed a decree "On the government of the Russian Federation", according to which the government of the Russian Federation was instructed to fulfill its duties until the formation of a new cabinet of ministers. On March 9, 2004, Gref was again appointed Minister of Economic Development and Trade of the Russian Federation, and Mikhail Fradkov became Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation. Izvestia wrote that by that time there was already a long-standing and mutual hostility between them. It, according to the publication, originated in 2000, when the Ministry of Trade headed by Fradkov was abolished and transferred to the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade. During the period of Fradkov's work in the Security Council and the tax police, his relations with the head of the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade were also quite tense, but without aggravation. The most serious skirmish between them took place in the second half of 2003 during one of Gref's visits to Brussels, where Fradkov was Russia's special representative to the EU. According to eyewitnesses, Gref then sharply reprimanded Fradkov for "bad work with the EU" in front of his subordinates. According to other sources, two high-ranking officials at the Brussels airport began to shout at each other, ignoring the witnesses. In 2005, Profile wrote that the ideological incompatibility between Fradkov and Gref (one is a Soviet bureaucrat, the other is a staunch "marketer"), aggravated by personal hostility, led to the fact that not a single government meeting was complete without a squabble between the prime minister and the minister of economy . But, according to the publication, over the years the situation has changed, and the working relationship between them has become completely different than in the first stage.

According to media reports, Gref has repeatedly opposed the monopolization of the oil and gas sector of the economy. In an interview with the Kommersant newspaper in January 2005, Gref said that the state should give "any profit-making activity into private hands" and "should focus its efforts on creating understandable, clearly observed by all the rules of the game." He called the direct presence of the state in the oil sector "unjustified". In particular, Gref was opposed to the nationalization of Yuganskneftegaz, a subsidiary of Yukos Oil Company, but subsequently publicly approved the deal to acquire it. According to media reports, Gref changed his mind because the government decree obliged state representatives in joint-stock companies to vote in accordance with the directives and powers of attorney of the Ministry of Property of the Russian Federation.

Gref took part in the fate of the state company OAO NK Rosneft, including organizing an initial public offering (IPO) among Russian and international investors in Russia and the UK in June 2006. At the same time, the head of the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade emphasized that more 70 percent of the shares of Rosneft will remain with the state.

Gref paid great attention to the Russian Regional Aircraft (RRJ) program, a joint project of the Sukhoi Civil Aircraft Company, the Ilyushin Aviation Complex and Boeing. The goal of the program was to create an aircraft that meets the existing and future requirements of the Russian and international markets. During a press conference on November 2, 2005, Gref called this project one of the priorities for Russia and promised that the obligations of the Russian side would be fulfilled on time. According to him, the state should have invested 8.6 billion rubles in the project. It was assumed that six aircraft should be produced by the end of 2007, and their serial production should begin in 2008.

In November 2005, Gref headed a commission that was involved in the formation of a list of projects applying for money from the Investment Fund of the Russian Federation. The list of investment proposals to the government included projects for the construction of a complex of oil refineries in Tatarstan and a project for the development of the Lower Angara region, as well as a number of projects for the development of the country's transport infrastructure: the construction of the Western High-Speed ​​Diameter in St. Petersburg, a section of the Moscow-St. the Minsk highway to the Moscow Ring Road and the railway to the mineral deposits in the Chita region, as well as the laying of the Orlovsky tunnel under the Neva. It was planned to allocate 164 billion rubles for the implementation of these projects.

On July 27, 2006, Gref made a statement about the transfer to the Federal Tax Service (FTS) of the authority to maintain a unified state automated information system for accounting for alcoholic beverages,. He made this statement after a group of members of the Public Chamber addressed an open letter to Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov. In the letter, representatives of the Civic Chamber asked the prime minister to deal with violations of the schedule for the production and supply of alcoholic beverages that arose due to a malfunction in the operation of the unified state automated information system (EGAIS), which was developed and maintained by the Federal State Unitary Enterprise Atlas under the FSB of Russia.

Gref was a supporter of Russia's early entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) and has repeatedly stated that Russia could be admitted to the WTO by 2007. After the representatives of Moscow and Washington again failed to agree on this issue during the G-8 summit held in July 2006 in St. Petersburg, Gref sent a letter to US Trade Representative Susan Schwab. It stated that in the event of further failure of negotiations on WTO accession, Russia would be forced to revise agreements on the import of meat from the United States, according to which quotas for the supply of poultry, beef and pork from this country were increased,.

On June 26, 2006, Gref proposed to the Board of Directors of RAO "UES of Russia" to work out the idea of ​​creating a Center for Power Engineering on the basis of the Power Machines (SM) concern. OAO Power Machines, with a turnover of $639 million in 2004, was described by the media as Russia's leading manufacturer of power equipment. Previously, the German concern Siemens expressed a desire to buy OJSC, but the Russian Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) refused the right to acquire it under the pretext that the company fulfills, among other things, military orders. Only after RAO "UES of Russia" acquired a controlling stake in Power Machines, Siemens received a blocking stake in the enterprise,,. According to media reports, by the end of August 2006, the energy holding directly owned 22.43 percent of the company's shares and about 30 percent more was in trust management of RAO; 2.5 percent of the shares were held by the St. Petersburg Generating Company. Analysts saw Gref's proposal as an attempt to persuade the management of RAO to take Power Machines under its full control. The board of the energy holding, as stated in the communiqué, accepted the proposal of the head of the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade for consideration.

In July-August 2006, Gref's name was mentioned in the press in connection with the process of approving the draft budget for 2007. The submission of the draft document for consideration by the government was postponed, as the Gref department delayed the transfer to the Ministry of Finance of the updated forecast of government spending.

In December 2006, the Ministry of Economic Development approved the creation of special economic zones (SEZ) of the tourist type. Their residents will have to receive a profit tax relief (20 percent instead of 24 percent), will be able not to pay property and land tax for five years, and the single social tax will be paid at a rate of 14 percent instead of 26 percent (but only from annual salaries up to 280,000 rubles). In the budget for 2007, 1.1 billion rubles were allocated for the creation of tourist zone infrastructure, so it was planned to create two or three, maximum five SEZs of this type. After the meeting of the competition commission at the end of October, seven regions scored the most points: Altai Territory, Gorny Altai, Buryatia, Irkutsk Region, Krasnodar and Stavropol Territories, as well as the Kaliningrad Region. "The most difficult choice, no one can be thrown out," Gref said at the decisive meeting of the commission and offered to support all applications. The commission agreed with him.

Describing Gref's personality, the media wrote that he had a reputation as a solid market man and a liberal who was ready to implement unpopular reforms,. He, according to a number of publications, believes in his ability to change Russia for the better. At the same time, it was noted that Gref lacks the depth and consistency of economic knowledge (he does not have an economic education). He believes in the absolute intrinsic value of private property and the need for maximum withdrawal of the state from the economy, and even state social programs, according to a number of publications, are an unnecessary burden in the eyes of the Minister of Economic Development. Gref does not accept everything that contradicts these principles, and it is absolutely impossible to convince him, since he does not like and cannot conduct a reasoned argument (it was even suggested that this was one of the main reasons for his dislike for the former presidential adviser on economic issues Andrei Illarionov, known for his love of discussions),.

The media linked the opinion expressed by a number of senior officials to Gref's poor economic preparation, according to which Gref allows Finance Minister Kudrin to "play his own field." As a result, departments that should balance each other cannot work together. Speaking about the rivalry between Gref and Kudrin, a number of publications mentioned the alleged advantages of the Minister of Finance over the head of the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade. According to them, Gref's personal merits to Putin are more modest than those that Kudrin has, who actively helped the future president find a job in Moscow after he left St. Petersburg in 1996. They also wrote in the media about the alleged mutual hostility between the ministers. However, the FeldPochta newspaper published the words of Gref himself, refuting this opinion: "We can argue and conflict as much as we like, but in difficult times we are ready to come to each other's aid." It is known that in 2004 Kudrin was among those invited to Gref's wedding.

In January 2006, Fradkov signed the Russian Development Program for 2006-2008. Vedomosti called him "an excellent example of compromise" between the prime minister and his subordinates, Gref and Kudrin. The signing of the program, according to the publication, was hampered by disagreements over the clause on doubling GDP in 10 years. Throughout 2005, Gref's department introduced variously corrected versions of the medium-term program, but the doubling of GDP did not come out in any way, despite the planned ultra-high oil prices. As a result, only the phrase remained in the program that the program should ensure GDP growth twice in 10 years, but without specifying for which years and without economic calculations. In exchange for this, Kudrin and Gref agreed to a reduction in the value added tax (VAT) rate to 13 percent, which Fradkov had insisted on for more than a year, but also without specifying the timing of the introduction of this rate. In this regard, political scientist Alexei Makarkin noted that "Fradkov clearly does not have enough strength to push through decisions, there are too many centers of gravity in the cabinet," since "both Kudrin and Gref have direct access to the president."

It was noted that Gref is absolutely intolerant of the slightest sign of corruption in his environment (supposedly his secretaries are afraid to take even a box of chocolates as a gift). In 2001, Literaturnaya Gazeta expressed the opinion that Gref clearly sees that the root of evil in Russia is in corrupt officials. According to the publication, ninety percent of his efforts are aimed at fighting them. At the same time, the newspaper noted, Gref’s sobriety in assessing Russian realities is sometimes strikingly combined with naivety: for example, he allegedly believes that if the authorities set an example of honesty and transparency, then the lower levels of bureaucracy will follow this example.

The press published statements about Gref as a proud, quick-tempered and not always restrained person. He reacts sharply to criticism and once, at a government meeting, he was indignant for a long time and demanded that the extremists who publicly burned his effigy be severely punished. His working vocabulary is also figurative and emotional (the media published the stories of Gref's colleagues that such expressions as "for such work you need to be hung on a rope", "lowered down the stairs" are a common thing for him). At the same time, the press emphasized that Gref always apologizes if he was wrong, and in ordinary situations he is quite polite and correct,.

Putin, according to some reports, appreciates the simplicity, aphorism, "unscientific" with which Gref sets out his views on the development of the country. It has even been suggested that Putin's expressions "wet in the toilet" and "from a dead donkey's ears" were born precisely "during meetings between the head of state and the minister of economy." A number of media outlets mentioned that with other high-ranking officials, Gref very often uses a win-win argument: “I will go to Putin, and he will support me!”, Despite the fact that the president does not like to interfere in conflicts between his associates.

In 2003, the television Vesti Nedeli, calling Gref the only Russian Catholic minister, told that he accompanied President Putin during his visit to the Vatican and appeared before Pope John Paul II. "Arguments and Facts", in turn, also talked about a visit to the Vatican, but clarified that Gref adheres to the Protestant faith, which denies the very institution of the papacy, which, in their opinion, added some piquancy to the situation.

In May 2006, in an interview with the NTV channel, Gref said that he was not going to work as an official all his life. Comparing civil service with military service, he noted that it is associated "with a huge number of restrictions, including restrictions of a personal nature." "But it can't go on forever," he stressed. In December 2006, in an interview with NTV, he again spoke about his resignation. Saying that the work of the Minister of Economy is extremely difficult, he said: "I believe that there are a large number of worthy people in the country who can cope with these duties no worse than me." He also mentioned the need for rotation in the government, noting that he "will need to be 'changed' in the near future, like other ... members of the government." About his plans for the future, Gref said: “I would like to go somewhere in business, I don’t know where else, I need to change the field of activity ...”.

On September 12, 2007, Gref became interim Minister of Economic Development and Trade of the Russian Federation due to the fact that Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov asked President Putin to resign his Cabinet in full force. The Prime Minister substantiated his request by the desire to give the President freedom of personnel decisions on the eve of the parliamentary and presidential elections. Putin accepted the resignation, asking the prime minister and other ministers to temporarily fulfill their duties. Fradkov's successor as prime minister was Viktor Zubkov, whose appointment was approved by the State Duma on September 14. On September 24, a new composition of the government was announced: Gref was replaced in it by his former first deputy Elvira Nabiullina,.

On October 16, 2007, the Supervisory Board of Sberbank of Russia recommended Gref's candidacy for election as president and chairman of the board of the bank. A few days earlier, the former head of Sberbank, Andrey Kazmin, was recommended by Zubkov to the post of head of the Federal State Unitary Enterprise Russian Post,. At the extraordinary general meeting of shareholders of Sberbank of Russia held on November 28, 2007, a decision was made to terminate Kazmin's powers "in connection with the transfer to another job." As expected, Gref was elected in his place (there were no other candidates for voting),.

In June 2009, Gref, as chairman of the board of Sberbank of Russia, joined the board of directors of NK OAO Lukoil (president - Vagit Alekperov).

In 2009, Gref repeatedly spoke in the press with forecasts about the future of the Russian economy and the possibilities of reducing the negative consequences for it during the global financial crisis. In January, he was quite optimistic: the head of Sberbank noted that along with the reduction in the number of banks as a result of the crisis, the technological level and quality of the banking system would increase, and "the old and, as it turned out, ineffective, would be replaced by a different risk management model." At the same time, Gref acknowledged that the crisis would last longer than expected. In April of the same year, he stated that "the banking crisis in the Russian Federation is now at the very beginning, and it will come from the real sector of the economy." At the same time, he said that back in September 2008, at a meeting of the Russian government, he predicted a decline in GDP in 2009 by four percent and a possible fall in the banking sector by 18.8 percent. "Then everyone laughed at this ... But now it is obvious that these are absolutely real numbers ...", he said,.

In December 2009, Sberbank of Russia announced a rebranding. Gref spoke about the fact that the bank is going to change its corporate style and instead of the existing logo to choose a more "dynamic and young" one in May of the same year. According to experts, changing the logo and updating all branches should have cost about 20 billion rubles. Even before the presentation of the new logo, experts said that the rebranding of Sberbank, although aimed at attracting new customers, would pay off only if business processes were changed along with the corporate identity,,,,. The bank's new logo was introduced on December 14, 2009; at the same time, Gref announced a number of other measures aimed at creating the image of an "absolutely new Sberbank", including the introduction of new formats for customer service offices,. In September of the following year, the bank also changed its former name "Joint Stock Commercial Savings Bank of the Russian Federation (Open Joint Stock Company)" to a new one - "Open Joint Stock Company Sberbank of Russia".

In January 2010, Gref, speaking at the Davos Economic Forum, spoke in favor of reducing the state's share in the capital of Russian banks: in particular, he proposed reducing the state-owned stake in Sberbank from 57.6 percent to 50 percent plus one share. In March of the following year, the sale of 7.58 percent of Sberbank's shares was approved by the National Banking Council, and in September 2012, the shares were sold on the stock exchange for $5.22 billion,,.

At the end of May 2010, it became known that Gref acquired a small number of Sberbank shares - 0.000004 percent of the authorized capital. At the same time, it was noted that the option programs that were being prepared at that moment for Sberbank could allow Gref to significantly increase his stake,. However, already in June, Gref, without waiting for the start of the option programs, increased his stake in Sberbank immediately by 150 times, bringing it to 0.0006 percent of the authorized capital. By August 2011, his share in the authorized capital of Sberbank increased to 0.0016 percent and continued to grow.

In February 2011, Vedomosti reported on record profits received by Sberbank and on the largest payments to its managers in the history of the bank, which amounted to almost 985 million rubles in 2010. The quarterly report noted that the increase in payments was associated with an increase in the bank's net profit from 21.7 to 183.6 billion rubles, i.е. more than 8 times. Gref spoke about the successes of Sberbank at a meeting with Prime Minister Putin. In response to this, as Vedomosti noted, the head of government asked how much the bank pays on deposits to its depositors, and when he heard the answer that the rate would be about 5 percent for a period of six months, he joked: "You are crooks."

Sberbank's net profit in 2011 was again a record high, exceeding the result of the previous year by 74 percent and amounting to 315.9 billion rubles. Only in the last quarter of the year, the bank showed a lower financial result than in 2010 due to increased deductions to reserves associated with an outstripping growth in lending, . In the first quarter of 2012, Sberbank's net profit again exceeded the result of the previous year and amounted to 92.2 billion rubles against 86.8 billion in January-March 2011 [

The biography of German Oskarovich Gref is well known to everyone who follows the current situation in Russia. This is an influential statesman who in...

Gref German Oskarovich: biography, family, personal life, photo

By Masterweb

The biography of German Oskarovich Gref is well known to everyone who follows the current situation in Russia. This is an influential statesman who currently holds the post of chairman of the board of Sberbank. Previously, he headed the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade of the Russian Federation. Considered one of the highest paid and most successful top managers in the country. His path to the financial Olympus was long and thorny. At various times, he led large private and state-owned companies, including Transneft, Lukoil, Yandex, Gazprom.

Childhood and youth

The biography of German Oskarovich Gref begins in 1964, when he was born in the small village of Panfilovo. This unattractive place is located near Pavlodar. The date of birth of German Oskarovich Gref is February 8. His parents were ethnic Germans who were resettled in the Kazakh steppes from the Donbass. It happened in 1941, when the Great Patriotic War began: the reason was their nationality. German Oskarovich Gref was the youngest child in the family, besides him, his parents raised their older brother Evgeny and sister Elena.

Herman Oskarovich's parents came from an intelligent and educated family. Their names were Emilia Filippovna and Oscar Fedorovich. Mother worked as an economist, and father worked as an engineer. Recently, one can often hear the opinion that German Oskarovich Gref is a Jew. It is worth emphasizing that this information is fundamentally wrong. This conclusion can be reached if you carefully study his biography. German Oskarovich Gref is German by nationality, at least ethnically.

At the age of one and a half, grief happened in his family: his father died, after which his mother was left alone with three children in her arms. Their grandmother helped with their upbringing. She taught Herman modesty, restraint and accuracy, made sure that he mastered the German language perfectly, since everyone in the family spoke Russian.

Education

The next stage in the biography of German Oskarovich Gref is studying at school. His teachers are remembered as a disciplined and obedient student who practically did not give his mother any trouble. It is noteworthy that he not only distinguished himself by good academic performance in studying a variety of subjects, but also loved to play sports. At school he was even the captain of the football team.

After receiving a secondary education, German Oskarovich Gref entered the Institute of International Relations in the capital. But he failed to finish his studies, he was expelled for unknown reasons. After that, he was immediately taken into the army. He served in the special forces of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR.

Returning to the "citizen", German Oskarovich Gref again became a student, since getting a higher education was one of the highest priority goals in his life. This time he decided to conquer the Faculty of Law at the Law State University of Omsk. During his studies at the university, he showed himself as an active public figure, was a Komsomol organizer. Then for the first time in his life he became interested in politics.

He managed to graduate from the university with honors. Here he remained as a teacher.

Acquaintance with Anatoly Sobchak

In 1990, German Oskarovich Gref, whose photo is shown below, becomes a graduate student at Leningrad State University. This moment marks a turning point in his career, as Anatoly Sobchak, the future first popularly elected mayor of St. Petersburg, became his supervisor.

Gref made a good impression on Sobchak, who actually became his "godfather" in modern politics. Soon, from the university, he got a job with his supervisor at the mayor's office of St. Petersburg. Here the hero of our article quickly got used to it, met the future leaders of the country - Dmitry Medvedev and Vladimir Putin, who were also assistants and associates of Sobchak at that time.

Work in government

The next radical change in the biography of German Oskarovich Gref occurred due to perestroika. The concept of the state development of the modern country was formed in the new government of Russia. For this, a special committee for economic development was created. A promising economist in it immediately got the position of head.

In this position, German Oskarovich Gref showed his best qualities. He showed himself to be a specialist capable of making the most promising and accurate forecasts in the economy, and besides, in a simple and accessible form, presenting them to his immediate superiors, which his associates liked.

He worked as an economic strategist for seven years, after which his career took off. In 1998, he was made deputy head of the Ministry of State Property of the Russian Federation. A year later, Gref heads the Center for Strategic Research, and is a member of the Federal Commission for the Securities Market.

Ministerial portfolio

In 2000, his old, so to speak, comrade in the workshop, Putin, with whom they knew from work in the St. Petersburg mayor's office, wins the election. Gref is invited to the new government, handing over the portfolio of the Minister of Trade and Economic Development.

Gref holds this high and responsible position until 2007, retaining his place under five different prime ministers, which few people managed to do among officials of such a high rank. This once again proves that in his post he was a true professional who knew where to go and what to do.

Experts note many achievements in his work. For example, it was under Gref that the lobbying of the program for Russia's entry into the WTO began, the large-scale reform of taxation and the electric power industry was resumed, which brought the country to a qualitatively new level. At that time, the state economy began to be considered along with economically developed countries, received a high investment rating, and became a truly market economy.

At that time, Gref, in addition to a responsible position in the government, also led several large holdings. He was a member of the board of directors of Aeroflot, Gazprom, Rosneft and Transneft.

"Sberbank"

When in 2007 the government completely resigned on the eve of the next presidential election, Gref finally said goodbye to his portfolio, transferring the affairs to Elvira Nabiullina.

German Oskarovich himself, on the recommendation of the supervisory board of Sberbank, was appointed to the post of chairman of the board of the largest bank in the country and direct manager of a credit institution. He remains in this post today.

Good luck in your new position

It is worth noting that in this position Gref achieved noticeable and tangible results. Most importantly, his credit institution has become client-oriented, expanding its base of potential depositors and users many times over. In absolute terms, this made it possible to increase profits by 74%. Gref also carried out a large-scale rebranding of his organization, it was after his appointment as the head of Sberbank that technologically advanced and convenient systems of remote service channels appeared. All this has made the financial institution one of the most influential not only in Russia, but also in Central and Eastern Europe.

Certain efforts were made by his team to develop and form the internal corporate culture of employees. For example, since then, every year, Gref publishes a list of books that he recommends for mandatory reading to all managers of his organization without exception.

Renewal of powers

Finding the contacts of German Oskarovich Gref, of course, is not so easy. After all, he is a very busy man. The most real chance to contact him is to contact the Sberbank board itself.

In the spring of 2015, it became known that Gref's powers as president of this financial institution would be extended. At the moment, information has been confirmed that he will remain in charge of Sberbank until at least 2019. Perhaps, after that, the term of office will be extended again, as has happened more than once.

In parallel, the economist has recently been a member of the board of directors of Yandex. The shareholders of one of the world's largest search engines appreciated the knowledge and skills of the hero of our article, so they decided that they would be useful for the development of their Internet company. In the first place, the industry of legislative regulation is counting on Gref's help.

Scandal

At the same time, Gref cannot do without scandals in his post, although it must be emphasized that they are infrequent. However, in 2016, at the Gaidar Forum, the banker, to the surprise of many others, gave a negative assessment of Russia's current position in the international economic market.

Gref noted that Russia is gradually turning into a "downshifter country", which is falling further and further into the abyss, moreover, it is being technologically enslaved in front of most other advanced countries of the world.

The deputies of the State Duma reacted sharply and painfully to such a statement. Noting that such unpatriotic statements did not allow him to continue to lead the largest bank in the country, they demanded to immediately write a letter of voluntary resignation.

The situation was resolved, Gref still continues to lead Sberbank.

Personal life

During his life, the economist was married twice. His first chosen one was Elena Velikanova, his classmate. Feelings for her arose at the time of school youth. Young people were close friends, and immediately after receiving secondary education, they signed at the registry office.

In 1982, their first child was born, who was named Oleg. When the young man was 17 years old, he became a student at the Faculty of Law of St. Petersburg State University. However, he did not want to stay in the northern capital for a long time; in his third year, he transferred to the law faculty of Moscow State University.

In the 90s, Gref's marriage broke up for reasons that he himself does not like to talk about, so those around him can only guess what went wrong in his family. This happened even before Gref became Minister of Economic Development.

Second marriage

The second time German Oskarovich married in 2004. The famous designer Yana Glumova became his chosen one. She is the founder of the Khoroshevskaya progymnasium. According to her first education, Yana is close to her husband, as she also graduated from the Faculty of Economics.

The wedding was so chic that it shocked many deputies of the State Duma. The people's representatives were indignant at the fact that the wedding took place in the unique Peterhof reserve in the throne room, the rent of which is several million rubles. Children also appeared in the second marriage: German Oskarovich Gref had daughters in 2006 and 2008.

In 2015, Gref was again at the center of a scandal, which this time was connected with his personal life. The head of the site of the human rights organization GayRussia.Ru, Nikolai Alekseev, made an implausible statement that Gref himself was allegedly a representative of non-traditional sexual orientation. At the end of the year, posters with provocative inscriptions "Volodin and Gref are not gays" appeared on a large number of capital buses. They were promptly dismantled, and the action itself was immediately associated with provocations by Western opponents.

Economist's fortune

According to the authoritative economic publication Forbes, Gref is currently ranked sixth in the list of the highest paid top managers in the country. His annual income is estimated by experts at thirteen and a half million dollars. This includes salary, bonuses, share payments and long-term benefits.

In the last year, his annual income has decreased by about two million dollars.

Activity recently

In 2017, Gref's scandalous speech appeared on the Internet. It was made at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum. Everything that happened on the stage was broadcast on the Russia-24 channel. However, Gref apparently forgot about this, saying that he did not consider it necessary to give the broad masses access to legal information. In his opinion, thinking people pose a danger and even a threat to government circles, which find it more difficult to resort to manipulation methods.

At the moment, the economist intends to optimize the area of ​​mortgage lending, he is also engaged in returns to pre-crisis indicators in his work in the lending department.

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