Vladimir Potanin is the richest Russian in the world. He is also currently the richest person in the world. He has a net worth of over $57.7 billion.
Introduction
He’s a Russian billionaire, and a billionaire in the Russian business world.
The state took a 40 percent stake in Petrkovax, a pharmaceutical company founded by Potanin in 1993. The company, in turn, owns the world’s biggest publicly-traded drug-maker, Oleg Tinkov.
As he stated in mid 2018, he feels that his net worth is $35 Billion.
Early Life
Vladimir Olegovich Potanin was born in Moscow, on the 3rd of January, 1961, to Boris and Raisa.
He worked in the International section of the Ministry, primarily working on political issues of the Western Balkans and the Caucasus.
Upon graduating from the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, he joined the Soviet Foreign Trade Organization as a trade representative, and then moved over to the Ministry of Foreign trade.
Career
Potanin was elected as President and Chairman of the Board of Directors of Interros Company, on September 24, 1998. Since then, Potanin’s portfolio has included the Interros Company, the holding company Interros, as well as the assets of the company at the same time, i.e. Interros Investments, and a number of other assets belonging to the Interros Group.
The United States Treasury Department has frozen more than $23 billion in assets in 18 Russian individuals and companies that the department says are linked to the Kremlin’s power structure.
– In 2001 he became a member of the Governmental Board of the Sberbank.
– In April 2002 he became a member of the State Duma of Russia, standing for the party A Just Russia.
– From 2002 to the end of 2005 he was an Executive Director at the Sberbank’s International Department.
– In April 2007 he was named Chairman of the State Duma’s Committee on Defense and Security.
Since November 2001, he has been a member of the Advisory Board of the New York University Stern School of Business. He also is a member of the Advisory Board of the School of Humanities at the City College of New York.
He is also one of the four writers to be included in the French Cultural Heritage and was named an Officer of the prestigious Order of Arts and Literature. The French Ministry of Culture and Communications granted that award. The other three are Claude Simon, Marcel Proust, and André Malraux.
> In 2017, he spent $600 million on Russian military equipment.
Highlights
Vladimir Potanin’s career started in 1973 when he was elected for being a member of the first group of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Russia.
Favorite Quotes From Vladimir Potanin
From the moment when I understood that it is possible because I grew up in a country where it was not possible. There existed even a special article in the penal code of the Soviet Union, which punished entrepreneurial activity.
Russian billionaire Vladimir Potanin is in Moscow, looking for investments in Russian startups with an eye on foreign ventures. At the same time, he also mentioned he started to consider foreign business opportunities too.
The way we started was not from the business point of view, but from the development point of view. We used to be quite big real estate developers and we thought that if we can take care of the real estate business, which is a very important business, we have a good chance to make money.
“I am an admirer of Norilsk and have been since my early twenties. I am a great fan of this place, and the people who work here.”
The former chairman of Norilsk Nickel who is now worth US$7.3 billion said on Thursday that the company’s profits are going to be $1.25 billion this year and that he would never consider selling the company. He is currently on a three-day holiday in the Kola Peninsula, in the northwest of Russia.
The oligarchs who run Russia today – the ones who inherited considerable capital in the past – are not motivated to earn money. Their motivation is to keep their wealth at a given level. Their motivation is not to achieve something in life but to have the maximum of money that is possible.
3 Lessons From Vladimir Potanin
Know how to manage the business of your company.
Keep your eye on the ball.
Do not get distracted by frivolous matters.
Pay attention to detail.
Think and act long term.
1. Patience Is A Virtue
We need to be able to surrender control and turn out to be more like Christ and not be so hard on ourselves or one another.
2. Resilience Is Key
You need to have a massive amount of resilience. Ask any successful business owner, and they will tell you that things go wrong all the time.
3. Know When To Quit
You have to know when to quit on a project to make the most of the time invested in it.
Summary
He is a businessman who is considered to be a billionaire.
Potanin started his first company Interros in 1971. He worked for the Ministry of Foreign Trade as a customs officer until he started Interros.
Vladimir Potanin is a wealthy Russian businessman who has been rumored to hold a net worth of around $35 Billion USD.