HKUST IAS - UC RUSAL President's Forum

Oleg Deripaska heads United Company RUSAL, the world’s largest producer of aluminium that employs 76,000 people in 19 countries across 5 continents.

Born on January 2, 1968, Oleg V. Deripaska grew up and went to school in the Krasnodar region of southern Russia, close to the Black Sea. He traveled to the Russian capital to study Physics at Moscow State University and at the Plekhanov Academy of Economics.

On graduating with honours, Mr Deripaska set up the Military Investment and Trade Company, a small metals trading operation. As the company became successful, he used its profits to buy a stake in the Sayanogorsk Aluminium Smelter in Eastern Siberia, eventually becoming its Director-General in 1994.

Under his leadership, the fortunes of the smelter – the third largest in Russia – was turned round and it became an industry leader for labour safety, environmental standards, product quality, technological development and profitability. In 1998, the Sayanogorsk smelter was named one of Russia’s 20 leading companies by the business magazine Expert with production doubling in the decade to 2005 to 500,000 tons.

In 1997, the Sayanogorsk smelter became the core asset of the Sibirsky Aluminium Group. Within three years, the Group had become of the world’s top ten producers of aluminium products with a range of goods from rolled metal to aluminium foil and components for the aerospace, shipbuilding and car industries.

In 2000, Mr Deripaska became Director General of Russian Aluminium (RUSAL), set up as a result of merger of aluminium smelters and alumina refineries owned and operated by Sibirsky Aluminium and the major Russian oil company Sibneft. By 2007, it had become the world’s third largest aluminium producer. In the same year, it joined with SUAL Group, another of the world’s largest aluminium producers, and Glencore International AG, a Swiss natural resources group to form United Company RUSAL.

Oleg Deripaska heads Basic Element, one of Russia’s biggest international companies with over 300,000 employees globally. Basic Element was established by Mr Deripaska in 2001 to expand his business interests beyond the aluminium industry.

Along with the United Company RUSAL, Basic Element’s portfolio includes the GAZ Group, Russia’s second-largest car manufacturer; Ingosstrakh, one of its biggest insurance companies; EuroSibEnergo a major energy business in Siberia; construction firm GlavMosStroy and Bank Soyuz which is ranked among the top 30 Russian banks. Basic Element also owns the Aviacor aircraft manufacturer, SMR mining company, Continental Management Timber Industrial Company as well as stakes in European construction companies.

Mr Deripaska drives the introduction of the most modern manufacturing technologies and highest corporate standards across its businesses. The GAZ Group, for example, has worked with Chrysler as well as leading Canadian automotive and British design firms to improve car production at its plants. The purchase of British commercial vehicle firm LDV Holdings has opened new markets in Russia for its Maxus Vans and enabled the joint production with GAZ Group of new models.

Oleg Deripaska is an outspoken champion of environmental issues. Basic Element enterprises operate on the "no waste" concept so they reduce and eliminate industrial waste and hazardous pollution. Mr Deripaska was one of 16 global business leaders who drafted, on behalf of 100 of the world’s leading corporations, a package of recommendations to the 2008 G8 summit at Hokkaido to tackle effectively climate change.

Mr Deripaska is Vice President of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, Chairman of the Executive Board of the Russian National Committee of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) and a member of the Russian Government’s Competitiveness and Entrepreneurship Council. He heads the Russian representation on the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Business Advisory Council.

He sits on the Board of Trustees of many institutions including the Bolshoi Theatre and the School of Economics at Moscow State and helped set up the National Science Support Foundation and the National Medicine Fund.

Through his charity Volnoe Delo, he supports a wide range of initiatives to help children, improve medical care and increase educational opportunities throughout Russia as well as preserving the country’s archaeological and historical treasures.

In 1999 Mr. Deripaska received the Order of Friendship, a state award of the Russian Federation. He was named businessman of the year in 1999, 2006, 2007 by Vedomosti, a leading Russian business daily published in partnership with The Wall Street Journal and The Financial Times.

He resides in Moscow with his wife and two children.