Deputy Chairman of the Board of Directors and CEO of the Russian Energy company Gazprom, which, as of 2014, is the world's largest natural gas Producer.
He earned a PhD in Economics from the N.A. Voznesenskii Leningrad Finance and Economics Institute in 1989.
He was named Person of the Year by Expert Magazine in December 2005.
He comes from a German family in Leningrad.
He shared the title of Person of the Year from Expert Magazine with Dmitry Medvedev, chairman of Gazprom.
