Oleg Deripaska

He married Polina Yumasheva in February 2001. She is the daughter of Russian politician, journalist and business developer, Valentin Yumashev, also known as top advisor and son-in-law of the first President of the Russian Federation, Boris Yeltsin.

He has two children with Polina - a son, Pyotr, born in 2001, and a daughter, Maria, born in 2003.

Oleg Deripaska was born on January 2, 1968, in Dzerzhinsk, Nizhny Novgorod Oblast, Russian SFSR, in a Kuban Cossack family and was brought up in Ust-Labinsk, Krasnodar Krai.

His father died when he was very young and his mother, an engineer by profession, had to move out in search of work. He was primarily raised by his grandparents who taught him farming as well as discipline towards hard work.

Even before attaining teenage, Deripaska landed up with his first job, serving as an electrician's apprentice at the Ust-Labinsk plant where his mother was already serving.

In 1985, he enrolled at the physics faculty of ‘Moscow State University’ and completed his graduation with honours in physics from the university in 1993.

Meanwhile, he was enrolled for compulsory military service in 1986 following which he served Strategic Missile Forces of the Soviet army in the Trans-Baikal area, Siberia, till 1989.

The first metal trading company established by him was VTK. He set it up at the age of 25 along with fellow engineers, rocket scientists and physicists. He delved in export arbitrage by purchasing metal at Russian prices considerably much lower than the international market price in which it was sold abroad.

Most of the profits made from such dealings were spent by him to obtain a portion of shares of a smelter in Southern Siberia, the ‘Sayanogorsk Aluminium Smelter’. He went on to acquire more shares and vouchers of the smelter during 1993-94 and emerged as its largest individual shareholder after the Russian State by holding a stake of 20%.

From 1994 to 1997 he remained the prime shareholder of the smelter as also the General Manager. He also became the Director General of the plant in 1994.

‘Sayanogorsk Smelter’ went on to become the main asset of Sibirsky (Siberian) Aluminium Group in 1997 while Deripaska served as President of Sibirsky Aluminium Investment Industrial Group from 1997 to 2001. The investment industrial group eventually became Rusal’s main asset.

Apart from metals, he went on to become stakeholder of different companies from varied sectors like financial and insurance services, manufacturing, auto components, energy, construction, agriculture and aviation.