German Gref biography family. Gref German Oskarovich - biography

German Gref is the head of the largest bank in Russia and one of the highest paid top managers in the country. Gref has come a long way to the financial Olympus and during his career he held senior positions in the holdings Lukoil, Transneft, Gazprom and Yandex, and also served as the Minister of Economic Development and Trade of the Russian Federation. German Oskarovich introduced a number of conceptual ideas into the country's economy - the chief banker was responsible for the creation of free economic zones, consistent reform of the electric power industry and the taxation system.

Gref German Oskarovich was born on February 8, 1964 near Pavlodar, in the village of Panfilovo, in a family of ethnic Germans who were exiled to the steppes of Kazakhstan from the Donbass in 1941 because of their nationality. The future head of Sberbank became the third and youngest child in the family; German has older brothers Evgeniy and sister Elena. Gref's parents, Oscar Fedorovich and Emilia Filippovna, were educated and intelligent people. My father worked as an engineer, and my mother as an economist in the village council.

When Gref was 1.5 years old, grief happened in the family - his father died, leaving his mother alone with three children in her arms, whom the grandmother of the future banker helped raise. They taught the children restraint, modesty and accuracy, and also helped them master the German language perfectly.

German Oskarovich's school years were successful. The boy studied well, was an obedient and disciplined student, and did not cause trouble for his mother with unsatisfactory behavior. The future head of the Ministry of Economic Development did not have a passion for science, but he loved sports and was even the captain of the school basketball team.

After graduating from school, Gref entered MGIMO, but for unknown reasons dropped out of the university after the first year of study. After his expulsion, the young man was drafted into the army; the future economist repaid his debt to the Motherland in the ranks of the special forces of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs. After demobilization, Gref became a student at the Omsk State University of Law at the Faculty of Law. While studying at the university, German Oskarovich was an active public figure and Komsomol organizer, which aroused his political interest. The young man graduated from the university with honors and remained to work there as a teacher.

In 1990, Gref entered graduate school in Leningrad, where the former mayor of St. Petersburg, the “godfather” of the economist in his political career, became his supervisor. Thanks to the politician, German Gref got into the St. Petersburg city administration, within whose walls he met the future leadership of the country - and, as well as other Russian politicians and businessmen from Anatoly Sobchak’s team.

Government

The biography of German Gref received a key direction during the years of perestroika. When forming the concept of state development of modern Russia, a special committee for economic development of the Russian Federation was created under the government of the country, in which the economist was given the position of leader. In this post, Gref showed the ability to make accurate and long-term forecasts in the economy, which he presented in a simple form, which greatly impressed his colleagues.

German Gref worked as an economic strategist for 7 years, after which his career began to rapidly move towards ascending to the main political arena of the country. In 1998, German became deputy head of the Ministry of State Property of the Russian Federation. A year later, the economist headed the Center for Strategic Research and joined the board of the Federal Commission for the Securities Market. In 2000, after Vladimir Putin won the presidential election, German Oskarovich was invited to the new government as the country’s Minister of Economic Development and Trade.

Gref headed the Ministry of Economic Development until 2007 inclusive, maintaining the ministerial portfolio during the five-time change of prime ministers of the Russian Federation. The main achievements of German Gref in this position were lobbying for the program for Russia’s entry into the WTO, reforming the electricity industry and taxation in the country, thanks to which the Russian Federation reached the European level of economically developed countries, received the status of having a market economy and increased its investment rating.

In addition to government work, German Oskarovich held senior positions in the country's largest holdings and served on the board of directors of companies such as Gazprom, Aeroflot, Transneft and Rosneft.

Head of Sberbank of Russia

In 2007, after the complete resignation of the government on the eve of the presidential elections, German Gref completed his ministerial activities, transferring powers. On the recommendation of the Supervisory Board of Sberbank of Russia, Gref was elected president and chairman of the board of the country's largest bank, a position he holds to this day.

At the head of Sberbank, German achieved significant success - thanks to Gref, the financial institution became more client-oriented and globally expanded its client base, which allowed the bank’s net profit to increase by 74%. The new head of Sberbank carried out a modern rebranding, and also introduced convenient and technological systems for remote service channels, which made the financial institution a leader among banks in Eastern and Central Europe. German Oskarovich made efforts to develop the internal corporate culture of the bank’s employees. Every year, the banker publishes a top list of books that are recommended for mandatory reading by managers of the organization.

In May 2015, Gref's powers as president and chairman of the board of Sberbank were extended until 2019 inclusive. The economist also received membership in the board of directors of Yandex. Shareholders of one of the largest search engines in the world highly appreciate the professionalism and strategic abilities of German Oskarovich, which are important for the development of an Internet company in the process of legislative regulation of the industry.

At the beginning of 2016, German Gref found himself at the epicenter of a loud scandal. At the Gaidar Forum, the banker gave an unexpected assessment of the country’s current position in the international economic market. The former Minister of Economic Development of the Russian Federation called Russia a “downshifter country” that fell into the abyss and technological enslavement before the advanced countries of the world. State Duma deputies reacted sharply to such unpatriotic statements by the head of Sberbank and called on Gref, after such derogatory assessments, to voluntarily resign from the post of president of the country's largest financial institution.

Personal life

The head of Sberbank, German Gref, was married twice. His first love was with whom the future banker had been friends since school. The young people got married immediately after finishing school. In 1982, the newlyweds had their first child, son Oleg. At the age of 17, the young man entered the Faculty of Law of St. Petersburg State University, from where three years later he transferred to Moscow State University. German Gref's marriage to his first wife broke up even before German Oskarovich entered the government.

Gref married for the second time in 2004. His chosen one was designer Yana Vladimirovna Glumova, the founder of the Khoroshevskaya gymnasium, an economist by first education. Their marriage outraged the deputies and was widely discussed in the media, since the ceremony was held in the unique Peterhof nature reserve, the cost of renting the throne room of which reaches several million. In his second marriage, the former Minister of Economic Development of the Russian Federation had two more children. Daughters were born in 2006 and 2008. In 2015, photos of Yana Gref appeared online, who did not hide her next pregnancy.

In 2015, on the radio station “Finafm”, the head of the human rights activist website “GayRussia.Ru” made a statement that German Gref adheres to a non-traditional orientation. In November of the same year, posters with the inscription “Volodin and Gref are not gays” appeared at many bus stops in the capital. The banners were soon dismantled, and the action was called provocative with reference to agents of the US State Department.

State

In 2015, according to Forbes, German Gref took sixth position in the top of the highest paid managers in Russia. His annual income was estimated at $13.5 million, which included salary, bonuses, long-term incentives and stock awards. In 2016, the banker’s annual profit amounted to $11 million. In general, as Forbes notes, the total wealth of Russian top managers decreased by 2.3 times in 2016.

German Gref now

In 2017, a short video of German Gref’s speech at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum, which was broadcast on the Russia-24 channel, appeared on YouTube video hosting. The head of Sberbank forgot that there was a live broadcast and spoke out in support of the teachings of Kabbalah. The banker’s words conveyed the idea of ​​a people who should not have access to truthful information. Thinking people, according to Gref, are dangerous for government circles, which resort to methods of manipulation.

German Gref does not hide the fact that he strives to bring the era of digital dominance closer. The head of Sberbank, in his own interview, expressed support for the legalization of Bitcoin, a virtual currency, at the state level. In the summer of 2017, at a lecture to students, Gref said that lawyers working at Sberbank will be required to master working with neural networks.

Now German Gref is optimizing mortgage lending provided to the population by Sberbank. At a meeting with Vladimir Putin, which took place in early August, the chairman of the bank’s board reported to the president about a return to pre-crisis indicators in the work of the lending department.

Gref Yana Vladimirovna has been the second official wife of a very famous person in Russia for many years. The media often pays attention to her and mentions her in various articles on secular topics. And there is a logical explanation for this attention, because her husband, German Oskarovich Gref, is currently the president of Sberbank of Russia. On the one hand, this married couple may seem exemplary, and Yana herself can serve as an example of what a government official’s wife should be.

Before taking a leading position in Sberbank, her husband, German Oskarovich Gref, made a fairly good political career. For some time he even served as Minister of Economic Development of the Russian Federation.

Russian media often like to use this family as an example and a certain litmus test. The head of Sberbank is a kind of guarantor of stability in the state, and Gref’s wife, Yana (nee Golovina), is called upon to maintain this image.

The existing stereotype of the ideal woman

It would seem that Yana Vladimirovna copes well with the task assigned to her. Her family is exemplary; she gave birth to several children to her husband, who are growing up and receiving education not abroad, but in their native Russia.

The woman has not been noticed in any high-profile scandals; at official receptions she behaves with dignity and according to etiquette, always looks well-groomed, chic and in full accordance with the event. You can find many articles in which Yana is called an exemplary wife and an ideal mother.

Inconsistencies that are not noticeable at first glance

But if you try to study in detail the life of this girl before her marriage to German Oskarovich, you may get the impression that the wife of the head of Sberbank, Yana, is actually not so simple. None of the open sources provides her full biography. Information about her first husband (Yana already has her second official marriage with Gref) also does not appear anywhere. The wedding of this girl with her current husband ended in a big scandal and long and unpleasant proceedings in the State Duma, since the registration, apparently not entirely legally, was carried out in the throne room of the Peterhof State Nature Reserve itself. Now Yana Gref is an ideologist and the owner of one of the newfangled private schools. She states that the project to open the school was initially almost charitable, and she and her husband act as a kind of philanthropists. At the same time, completely ordinary children study at this school, whose parents can pay a monthly tuition fee exceeding 50,000 rubles.

Very brief biographical information

It is known that this woman was born in August 1975. But there is some confusion about her place of birth. Most available sources indicate that Yana Golovina (Glumova, Gref) was born in Gelendzhik. Her parents worked in one of the local boarding houses.

But at the same time, various Internet sources contain information that, according to some documents, Yana Gref, whose biography is discussed in this article, was born in Estonia. What causes such differences and why the information about the place of birth does not match remains a mystery to ordinary people.

Short first marriage

It is not for nothing that this woman is often referred to as Yana Glumova-Gref, since Glumova is her surname from her first husband. Oddly enough, nothing is known about Yanina’s first wife either. You can only find scant information that this marriage did not last long, only a few years. After her marriage to Glumov, the woman had an eldest son, who is now a student.

Education received

It is known that Gref’s wife graduated from high school. Then she received a higher education in economics. She worked in her specialty for several years. Many years later, she spoke less favorably of the experience. In a recent interview, Yana recalled that she went to work as if it were torture, solely to earn money. Now Gref Yana recalls that it was too exhausting for her, both morally and physically. And the tedious specialty was replaced by a passion for design.

Unprofitable hobby of interior design

After a not very successful experience in the economic sphere, Yana Gref (wife of Gref, the president of Sberbank) became interested in interior design. This direction fascinated the girl madly and she sincerely liked it. She learned to build houses and decorate their interiors with great enthusiasm.

But one problem arose: Yana, of course, was able to build and furnish a house for herself and for her closest friends, but there were few strangers willing to pay a significant amount for a special exclusive interior. Since there was no special flow of orders, Yana’s enthusiasm disappeared over time.

Loud wedding

Her life changes in May 2004, when she becomes the wife of German Gref.

The celebration was one that any simple girl could only dream of. The wedding procedure and the wedding feast itself were held in St. Petersburg. The painting took place in Petrodvorets, namely in its throne room. After registration, as expected according to the best traditions, there was a magnificent and noisy fireworks display. Next, the festive cortege with the newlyweds in a chicly decorated wedding carriage drove through Peterhof Park and stopped at the pier of the Gulf of Finland.

The newlyweds and their high-ranking guests boarded the ship, which turned out to be the boat that had taken Putin himself along the Neva during the celebrations of the 300th anniversary of St. Petersburg. On this presidential boat Gref Yana, her husband and their guests arrived in St. Petersburg. The celebration took place at K-2, one of the presidential residences, where guests rested until the morning. It would seem that any woman can only dream of such a luxurious celebration, but for the Gref spouses, German’s desire to give his chosen one a real fairy tale ended in a scandal and a lot of unnecessary proceedings.

Wedding scandal

Despite the fact that the wedding took place almost secretly, it was still not possible to hide the magnificent celebration from ordinary people and residents of St. Petersburg. A huge number of invited guests with their motorcades created traffic jams on St. Petersburg embankments almost all day long. At the time of the celebration, German Oskarovich served as Minister of Economic Development. Many people became interested in how much money was used to organize this enchanting ministerial wedding.

Since Peterhof is an active museum-reserve of national importance, ordinary people immediately had another question: “On what basis were the Grefs allowed to hold their wedding there and why did cultural monuments and architectural landmarks suddenly begin to be rented out?” Many people were outraged that an ordinary person, with all his desire to hold a wedding in Peterhof, would never be able to do this, but German Gref could.

Proceedings in the State Duma

Similar discussions gradually reached the State Duma. One of the deputies of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, Svetlana Savitskaya, initiated the creation of plenary instructions that demanded that the Duma committee conduct proceedings regarding whose permission the minister still celebrated his wedding in Peterhof. But quite predictably, almost all the deputies of the pro-presidential factions came to Gref’s defense, and the resolution necessary to officially begin the proceedings was never adopted.

Explanations from government officials

Against the backdrop of the scandal, some officials still had to give explanations. Most of the questions were addressed to Vadim Znamenov, the general director of Peterhof. In his defense, he stated that no one forbade holding celebrations in the palace, and he, as the director, has the right to personally decide which celebrations will take place there and which not. Regarding the story of Gref’s wedding, Znamenov said that he had personally known the current head of Sberbank for a long time and just wanted to do him a small favor.

The question of monetary payment for the rent of Peterhof was tactfully omitted by Znamenov.

Ioannina is a wonderful school for “ordinary” children

Despite the fact that after the wedding, Yana Gref, as some sources indicate, led an active social life, her and German’s wedding scandal was quickly forgotten, especially since Yana gave rise to new conversations. She decided to independently open a new elementary private school, in which everything would be exactly the way she wanted.

The school differs from ordinary public schools in its special approach to children and their needs. On the official website of this school you can find several menu options, including gluten-free meals and special food for allergy sufferers.

In order for a child to study at this institution, not only he, but also his parents must pass an interview. The students' first acquaintance with the future school, apparently according to Yanina's special idea, takes place in the gym, where the future student must go with his parents.

Now both of Yanina’s daughters are studying at this school, as well as her husband’s grandson (from the son born in her first marriage). Several friends and acquaintances of the Gref couple also sent their children to them for education. Yana Vladimirovna in her interviews emphasizes that her new school is intended for ordinary, inquisitive, restless children, and calls this project largely philanthropic. But at the same time, one month of study at an elite gymnasium costs parents an amount exceeding 50,000 rubles.

German Oskarovich has held the post of president and chairman of the board of Sberbank of Russia since the fall of 2007, former Minister of Economic Development of the Russian Federation, and is one of the most famous and highly paid top managers in Russia.

Childhood and school years

Born on February 8, 1964 in the village of Panfilovo, Pavlodar region in Kazakhstan, where his family was deported during the war. His father, Oscar Fedorovich, worked as a simple engineer, and his mother, Emilia Filipovna, worked as an economist in the village council. There were three children in the family (Herman is the youngest son), so the parents worked tirelessly. At the age of one and a half years, the boy lost his father, then his grandmother came to the aid of his mother - it was she who instilled in her grandchildren such qualities as restraint and modesty.

He studied well and was distinguished by exemplary behavior. He didn’t particularly like exact sciences, but he enjoyed playing sports and was even captain of the school basketball team.

Education and army years

In 1982, he was drafted into the army, where he served for two years.

After demobilization, he entered the Faculty of Law at Omsk State University. Having received a diploma in jurisprudence in 1990, he entered graduate school at the Faculty of Law of Leningrad State University.

In 2011, already as the head of Sberbank, he defended his dissertation at the Russian Academy of National Economy and Public Administration under the President of the Russian Federation.

Labor activity

In 1991-1998, he worked at the mayor's office of St. Petersburg, where he worked his way up from legal adviser of the economic development and property committee of the Petrodvorets administration to vice-governor, chairman of the city property management committee of the city administration.

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Later he met the future Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Center for Strategic Research (CSR), under his leadership, prepared Putin's economic program when he ran for his first presidential term in 2000.

While heading the Center for Social Development, in 1998-2000 he also served as Deputy Minister of State Property.

After Putin's victory in the first presidential elections, he was invited to head the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade. In the first half of the 2000s, it was one of the most influential ministries in the government.

In the fall of 2007, he became president and chairman of the board of Sberbank, and Elvira Nabiullina, the current chairman of the Bank of Russia, was appointed to his post at the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade.

Having headed Sberbank, he announced a radical reform aimed at making the bank a modern client-oriented credit organization. He outlined this goal as follows: “We must prove that elephants can dance!”

Hobbies

He enjoys running. Before the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, he took part in the final leg of the Olympic torch relay.

After joining Sberbank, he obliged top management to visit the corporate gym and swimming pool before meetings on Saturdays and resumed the company’s fading tradition of holding corporate sports competitions - Sberbankiads.

Family

Currently married for the second time, his wife, Yana, is the founder of the Khoroshevskaya gymnasium, which includes a kindergarten and an elementary school. She is a designer by training.

The couple was remembered for a very beautiful and magnificent wedding ceremony in April 2004, for which the Grand Palace was rented in Peterhof.

He has three children. The eldest son from his first marriage.

Biographies of family members

Yana Vladimirovna (wife)

Born August 5, 1975. Maiden name - Golovina, after her first husband - Glumova. According to Yana herself, she received an economics education and worked in her specialty for some time.

German Gref is the head of the largest bank in Russia and one of the highest paid top managers in the country. Gref has come a long way to the financial Olympus and during his career he held senior positions in the holdings Lukoil, Transneft, Gazprom and Yandex, and also served as the Minister of Economic Development and Trade of the Russian Federation. German Oskarovich introduced a number of conceptual ideas into the country's economy - the chief banker was responsible for the creation of free economic zones, consistent reform of the electric power industry and the taxation system.

Gref German Oskarovich was born on February 8, 1964 near Pavlodar, in the village of Panfilovo, in a family of ethnic Germans who were exiled to the steppes of Kazakhstan from the Donbass in 1941 because of their nationality. The future head of Sberbank became the third and youngest child in the family; German has older brothers Evgeniy and sister Elena. Gref's parents, Oscar Fedorovich and Emilia Filippovna, were educated and intelligent people. My father worked as an engineer, and my mother as an economist in the village council.

When Gref was 1.5 years old, grief happened in the family - his father died, leaving his mother alone with three children in her arms, whom the grandmother of the future banker helped raise. They taught the children restraint, modesty and accuracy, and also helped them master the German language perfectly.

German Oskarovich's school years were successful. The boy studied well, was an obedient and disciplined student, and did not cause trouble for his mother with unsatisfactory behavior. The future head of the Ministry of Economic Development did not have a passion for science, but he loved sports and was even the captain of the school basketball team.

After graduating from school, Gref entered MGIMO, but for unknown reasons dropped out of the university after the first year of study. After his expulsion, the young man was drafted into the army; the future economist repaid his debt to the Motherland in the ranks of the special forces of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs. After demobilization, Gref became a student at the Omsk State University of Law at the Faculty of Law. While studying at the university, German Oskarovich was an active public figure and Komsomol organizer, which aroused his political interest. The young man graduated from the university with honors and remained to work there as a teacher.

In 1990, Gref entered graduate school in Leningrad, where the former mayor of St. Petersburg Anatoly Sobchak, the “godfather” of the economist in his political career, became his supervisor. Thanks to the politician, German Gref got into the St. Petersburg city administration, within whose walls he met the future leadership of the country - Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev, as well as other Russian politicians and businessmen from Anatoly Sobchak’s team.

Government

The biography of German Gref received a key direction during the years of perestroika. When forming the concept of state development of modern Russia, a special committee for economic development of the Russian Federation was created under the government of the country, in which the economist was given the position of leader. In this post, Gref showed the ability to make accurate and long-term forecasts in the economy, which he presented in a simple form, which greatly impressed his colleagues.

German Gref worked as an economic strategist for 7 years, after which his career began to rapidly move towards ascending to the main political arena of the country. In 1998, German became deputy head of the Ministry of State Property of the Russian Federation. A year later, the economist headed the Center for Strategic Research and joined the board of the Federal Commission for the Securities Market. In 2000, after Vladimir Putin won the presidential election, German Oskarovich was invited to the new government as the country’s Minister of Economic Development and Trade.

Gref headed the Ministry of Economic Development until 2007 inclusive, maintaining the ministerial portfolio during the five-time change of prime ministers of the Russian Federation. The main achievements of German Gref in this position were lobbying for the program for Russia’s entry into the WTO, reforming the electricity industry and taxation in the country, thanks to which the Russian Federation reached the European level of economically developed countries, received the status of having a market economy and increased its investment rating.

In addition to government work, German Oskarovich held senior positions in the country's largest holdings and served on the board of directors of companies such as Gazprom, Aeroflot, Transneft and Rosneft.

Head of Sberbank of Russia

In 2007, after the complete resignation of the government on the eve of the presidential elections, German Gref completed his ministerial activities, transferring powers to Elvira Nabiullina. On the recommendation of the Supervisory Board of Sberbank of Russia, Gref was elected president and chairman of the board of the country's largest bank, a position he holds to this day.

At the head of Sberbank, German achieved significant success - thanks to Gref, the financial institution became more client-oriented and globally expanded its client base, which allowed the bank’s net profit to increase by 74%. The new head of Sberbank carried out a modern rebranding, and also introduced convenient and technological systems for remote service channels, which made the financial institution a leader among banks in Eastern and Central Europe. German Oskarovich made efforts to develop the internal corporate culture of the bank’s employees. Every year, the banker publishes a top list of books that are recommended for mandatory reading by managers of the organization.

In May 2015, Gref's powers as president and chairman of the board of Sberbank were extended until 2019 inclusive. The economist also received membership in the board of directors of Yandex. Shareholders of one of the largest search engines in the world highly appreciate the professionalism and strategic abilities of German Oskarovich, which are important for the development of an Internet company in the process of legislative regulation of the industry.

At the beginning of 2016, German Gref found himself at the epicenter of a loud scandal. At the Gaidar Forum, the banker gave an unexpected assessment of the country’s current position in the international economic market. The former Minister of Economic Development of the Russian Federation called Russia a “downshifter country” that fell into the abyss and technological enslavement before the advanced countries of the world. State Duma deputies reacted sharply to such unpatriotic statements by the head of Sberbank and called on Gref, after such derogatory assessments, to voluntarily resign from the post of president of the country's largest financial institution.

Personal life

The head of Sberbank, German Gref, was married twice. His first love was Elena Velikanova, with whom the future banker had been friends since school. The young people got married immediately after finishing school. In 1982, the newlyweds had their first child, son Oleg. At the age of 17, the young man entered the Faculty of Law of St. Petersburg State University, from where three years later he transferred to Moscow State University. German Gref's marriage to his first wife broke up even before German Oskarovich entered the government.

Gref married for the second time in 2004. His chosen one was designer Yana Vladimirovna Glumova, the founder of the Khoroshevskaya gymnasium, an economist by first education. Their marriage outraged the deputies and was widely discussed in the media, since the ceremony was held in the unique Peterhof nature reserve, the cost of renting the throne room of which reaches several million. In his second marriage, the former Minister of Economic Development of the Russian Federation had two more children. Daughters were born in 2006 and 2008. In 2015, photos of Yana Gref appeared online, who did not hide her next pregnancy.

In 2015, on the radio station “Finafm”, the head of the human rights activist website “GayRussia.Ru” Nikolai Alekseev made a statement that German Gref adheres to a non-traditional orientation. In November of the same year, posters with the inscription “Volodin and Gref are not gays” appeared at many bus stops in the capital. The banners were soon dismantled, and the action was called provocative with reference to agents of the US State Department.

State

In 2015, according to Forbes, German Gref took sixth position in the top of the highest paid managers in Russia. His annual income was estimated at $13.5 million, which included salary, bonuses, long-term incentives and stock awards. In 2016, the banker’s annual profit amounted to $11 million. In general, as Forbes notes, the total wealth of Russian top managers decreased by 2.3 times in 2016.

German Gref now

In 2017, a short video of German Gref’s speech at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum, which was broadcast on the Russia 24 channel, appeared on YouTube video hosting. The head of Sberbank forgot that there was a live broadcast and spoke out in support of the teachings of Kabbalah. The banker’s words conveyed the idea of ​​a people who should not have access to truthful information. Thinking people, according to Gref, are dangerous for government circles, which resort to methods of manipulation.

German Gref does not hide the fact that he strives to bring the era of digital dominance closer. The head of Sberbank, in his own interview, expressed support for the legalization of Bitcoin, a virtual currency, at the state level. In the summer of 2017, at a lecture to students, Gref said that lawyers working at Sberbank will be required to master working with neural networks.

Now German Gref is optimizing mortgage lending provided to the population by Sberbank. At a meeting with Vladimir Putin, which took place in early August, the chairman of the bank’s board reported to the president about a return to pre-crisis indicators in the work of the lending department.

German Gref came to manage Sberbank of Russia straight from the government sidelines - until 2007, his patrimony was much larger, because a native of the steppes of Kazakhstan was entrusted with the Ministry of Economic Development.

Today, in 2015, the head of the largest bank in the Russian Federation is one of the highest paid top managers in the state. The aspiring lawyer overcame the path to financial Olympus by leaps and bounds, going through the stages of management of the largest government agencies and such well-known holdings as Lukoil, Gazprom, Transneft, Yandex, etc. In 2013, his income amounted to about $15 million. According to Forbes magazine, he is on the list of the 25 richest top managers in Russia.

Wikipedia data:

Place of birth: USSR, Kazakh SSR, Pavlodar region, village. Panfilovo

Family: married, 3 children.

German Oskarovich Gref. A well-known person in Russia. One of those people they say is a self-made man.

Education

• 1982-1984 – service in the ranks of the SA;
• 1990 – graduate of Omsk State University, majoring in Law;
• 1990-1993 – postgraduate study at Leningrad State University. Upon completion - Candidate of Economic Sciences;

Speaks fluently in German and English.

Herman and his young wife made their first attempt to escape from the remote Kazakh province into the civilized world in the first year after graduating from school. They set their sights on studying at Omsk State University, but both failed the exams - the newlyweds did not have enough rural education to enter the university. For graduates of the village school, this is a common story. For many, higher education remained a dream - they left to return... forever, and stay in Kazakhstan. Many, but not German Gref. The future Minister nevertheless entered the university. The third attempt was successful. Before that, he already had military service behind him, so he didn’t have to take the exam - the former soldier was enrolled in the workers’ school, and then automatically transferred to the 1st year of university.

Career

• 1991-1992 – work as a legal adviser of the first category at the Committee for Economic Development and Property in the administration of Petrodvorets (St. Petersburg);
• 1992 – Head of the Petrodvorets Agency under the City Property Management Committee in the City Hall of St. Petersburg;
• 1992-1994 – Deputy Head of the Administration of Petrodvorets;
• 1994 – First Deputy Chairman of the Committee for Municipal Property Management at the City Hall of St. Petersburg;
• 1997-1998 – Vice-Governor and Chairman of the City Property Management Committee of St. Petersburg;
• 2000 – First Deputy Minister of State Property of the Russian Federation;
• 2000-2007 – Minister of Economic Development and Trade of the Russian Federation;
• November 2007 – appointed President and Chairman of the Board of Sberbank of Russia.
• May 2014 – while remaining the head of the Security Council, he was elected to the board of directors of Yandex JSC. Especially to introduce him to this position, the number of council members was increased from 8 to 9. The remaining 8 people remained in their places.

I met V. Putin in the early 90s.

The head of Sberbank has government awards:

• Order of Merit for the Fatherland, 4th degree;
• Medal of Stolypin P. A.;
• Gratitude, Certificate of Honor from the President of the Russian Federation.

Caucasian ambitions of a wise German...

He gained a reputation as a liberal and a convinced market leader, and during the “St. Petersburg period of his career” he tried to push unconventional reforms of government to the masses, without focusing too much on socially weak links. If Freud had analyzed his psychotype, he would certainly have found the reasons for his harsh character in childhood. Indeed, in the first years of his life, Herman was not the same cheese in butter. At one time there were even rumors that his unbridled character was a manifestation of Caucasian genetics, because many were sure that he was half Chechen. Later the information was double-checked. The biography on the official website of Sberbank says that German Oskarovich is a German of pure blood. Back in 1913, his grandfather came to St. Petersburg to teach philosophy. In 1941, the family was exiled to the wide steppes of Kazakhstan - of course, due to their “non-Russian nationality.”

In 1964, the family lived in the village of Panfilovo near Pavlodar, when their third child was born. The older children were already adults: brother Evgeniy (a businessman, today lives in Omsk), sister Elena (heads a business in Nakhodka, shareholder of a bank).

The father died when his youngest son was 1.5 years old. An engineer by training, he designed the village's power supply system. The boy was raised by his mother (Maria Filippovna, an economist, currently lives with her son) and grandmother. All family members spoke German and Russian well. Friends are still surprised at the ability of an ethnic German to read the works of Goethe and Heidegger without an adapted translation. Later, already in adulthood, he would visit the Oder more than once. The eldest son of the former Minister, having graduated from Moscow State University in 2004, continued his education in Germany.

According to neighbors, the Grefs lived in a small house near the pier. The boy was modest and neat; it was felt that he was from an intelligent family. Since childhood, I was accustomed to keeping my emotions inside, so I was always restrained and tense, like a spring. While my mother lived in the village, German visited Panfilovo to help with the housework and take part in haymaking. Now that he had moved his mother to Moscow, there was somehow no need to come to Kazakhstan. Yes, and there was no time, although as a Minister, he still visited his homeland to donate a computer with a music center to the school.

As German Oskarovich’s childhood friend, Talgat Kasenov, says, he knows how to make friends. They still sometimes call each other, meet in an informal setting to drink a cup of coffee and reminisce about their hectic childhood. Almost all the boys were from exiled families. Everyone was obsessed with the dream of proving that they were no worse than others and breaking out of the eternal oppressive exile. T. Kasenov tells how they played volleyball, running, and won prizes in the region. How they taught karate - by themselves, from books. His passion for sports was so serious that at one time he was the captain of the basketball team formed at school.

Marriages and family

German Gref is married for the second time. He had been friends with his first wife, Elena Velikanova, since school. She was the most beautiful girl in school, everyone looked after her, but back in the fifth grade she chose Herman. The lovers got married immediately after graduating from school, and in the first year their son Oleg was born.

Early marriages are not always strong. The relationship between the spouses went wrong, and Elena never had to become the Minister’s wife. The woman still does not want to share with journalists her memories of the years spent in marriage. The ex-husband was not without a stamp in his passport for long - in 2004 he remarried. His current chosen one is a woman named Yana Golovina (last name in Glumova’s first marriage), a designer by profession. We can still hear dissatisfied exclamations addressed to the former newlyweds from those who did not want to take for granted the solemn wedding, which was organized in the throne room of Peterhof.

In 2006, she gave birth to the Minister’s first daughter, and 2 years later her second. Today the wife of the head of Sberbank is busy with a new project. According to Yana, design and economics are a thing of the past. She immersed herself in education, opening a private school with the help of her husband. Only a select few can get here, and parents and children are asked to come to the interview in sportswear. The school is private, tuition fee is 51 thousand per month.

Army and students

Every public person has biography pages that he prefers not to make public. German Gref's service in the Armed Forces is a secret behind seven seals. As people close to him say, he was never distinguished by his remarkable strength, but he came out of the army a different person, and sometimes showed techniques that few people knew about.

Once in an interview, the former Minister said that he had to serve in the internal troops, and also added that he does not regret that at one time he paid his debt to the Motherland, because it was the army that made a man out of him. That's all. He does not go into details of the service. By the way, many do not deny that Gref’s strong-willed qualities developed precisely in the ranks of the SA, because, as many believed in Soviet times, internal troops were nothing more than prison special forces. There is no more information in any official documents - neither in the VV Museum at the Ministry of Internal Affairs, nor in the archives - about the adventures of the soldier G. Gref. Astute people have noticed that the head of the country's main bank is almost the only one in the Government who has completed military service. Others apparently slanted.

Still, one of the richest managers in Russia is, to some extent, the darling of fate, which has repeatedly presented him with generous gifts, and he has not refused a single one. While studying at the university, he was an activist and Komsomol organizer. His classmates even chose him as the commander of the student detachment. The dean of the law faculty at that time was S. Baburin, who was then taking his first steps in politics and he really needed the support of the students. Later, when the former law student held the post of Minister, Baburin more than once refused interviews with journalists if he was asked to talk about connections with one of his former students. At that time, he was a member of the Rodina party, which assessed the government’s activities extremely negatively. Admitting that a member of a radical party has a long-standing connection with the current Ministry of Economic Development means committing political suicide.

Later he will tell you that he perfectly remembers this active student who was always late for classes. A native of the Kazakh hinterland at that time, he was engaged in intense social work, and besides, he was already married and had a small son. Gref's habit of being late was so ingrained that later, while working as a Minister, he would receive an ironic reprimand from V. Putin. The President will politely hint that it is already midnight in the Russian economy, but a doubling of GDP is not yet expected.

The former exiled German worked in construction brigades every summer, receiving up to 4 thousand rubles per season. In the Omsk region there are 2 villages - Dzharkurtal and Kip, where buildings built by that student landing force still stand, although their appearance leaves much to be desired - there is no one to care for them. Gref graduated from law school with honors, and for his active work in construction teams he was awarded a free trip abroad. History is silent about which countries the future Minister visited, but something else is important. Many are sure that it was this trip that completely changed the young man’s worldview and filled his mind with liberal ideas.

It is known that the course in which G. Gref studied organizes meeting evenings. In the anniversary year, graduates of Omsk State University gathered in the Moscow “Balchug”. Herman was there too, but, as usual, he was late...

Development of St. Petersburg

If you were asked to name only one word with which the career of the President of Sberbank is associated, it would be “Peter,” and to describe the beginning of a career in 3 words means adding Putin and Sobchak to Peter. He came to the Northern capital in 1990 on the advice of the same Baburin, who prompted him to enter graduate school in Leningrad. Some sources credit him with the title of Candidate of Sciences, but no one remembered the scientific works of German Oskarovich. Some claim that he did not go to graduate school, others say that he started studying, but never finished. Perhaps they are right, because it was at that time that Herman was already interested in a completely different science, which aroused his greater interest than jurisprudence.

It so happened that A. Sobchak became Gref’s scientific supervisor, and V. Putin supervised the St. Petersburg State University student through the KGB. Neither one nor the other yet had power, but it was these two famous personalities who became “godfathers” for Gref. Having started his journey in the university corridors, he gradually taxied into power. At this stage of his career, the human traits of the head of Sberbank emerged. When V. Putin fell on hard times and he was politely “left” from the post of Deputy Prime Minister of St. Petersburg, most former comrades stopped noticing their colleague, but not his protégé, who, as before, communicated with and supported Putin. Probably, the current President of the Russian Federation did not want to forget this.

Later, the Ministry of Economic Development itself stated that it actively participated in the process of returning exiled Germans to Russia. Not far from St. Petersburg there is the village of Strelna, inhabited by ethnic Germans, and its creation did not take place without the participation of their famous compatriot.

From St. Petersburg to Moscow

The next career change occurred when a special center was created under the Government of the Russian Federation in order to formulate the concept of state development. The people who were in power at that moment could not find a suitable candidate for the head of the newly created structure. In truth, no one wanted to take on such responsibility - making forecasts in the economy. They offered Gref - he agreed, although the place seemed not to be profitable, there was no one to take bribes from.

Even then, Putin liked the way Gref presented his promising version of the state’s development. The President appreciated the simplicity and lack of science in his concepts. Gref’s associates say that the aphorism with which he expressed his thoughts greatly impressed Putin, and his phrases “to soak in the toilet” and the statement about the ears of a dead donkey appeared under the influence of conversations with the future Minister.

Yes, the vocabulary of exiles in the Russian Federation is not clear to everyone, and probably seems a little harsh and offensive to those who are not familiar with it. On the other hand, no one can accuse Gref of impropriety and impoliteness. If he feels that he went too far or was wrong, he will apologize - a proven fact.

Sberbank is my patrimony

He took over the leadership of the country's largest bank in 2007. The former manager, A. Kazmin, was offered a job at another government agency, Russian Post. The former Minister was recommended for the post of head of Sberbank by the Supervisory Board of the credit institution entrusted to him, and is now its President. During his leadership, he assembled a team of thoughtful associates, which increased the number of clients who switched to online services, showed people of retirement age all the advantages of making payments using plastic cards, and offered private banking service to wealthy clients.

With the light hand of the leader, the company's top managers visit corporate gyms and swimming pools, and this is not their right, but a duty. He also revived the almost extinct tradition of holding savings bank games on the estate entrusted to him.

A self-made man is about German Oskarovich. We all, of course, believe that our economy will follow the path of its former leader and, finally, having survived a period of difficult childhood, will enter prosperous youth and maturity. Indeed, within the framework of his family region, he, a little exile from a Kazakh village, has already achieved this.