Who ran the Savings Bank before Gref. “In Russia, clients are divine”: this is what German Gref said. Personal life in the biography of German Gref

Gref German Oskarovich is known for his political activities not only in Russia, but also abroad. His conceptual ideas are very popular. In 2007, Gref becomes the head of Sberbank, which he is to the present day. According to Forbes magazine, the banker was included in the list of nine Russian businessmen who are considered eccentrics and eccentrics. Who is German Gref? His biography is very rich in events, and in this article we will take a closer look at the life of a politician.

Place of birth and family

Gref German Oskarovich was born on February 8, 1964 in the Kazakh SSR, in the village of Panfilovo, Pavlograd region. His parents are ethnic Germans who were exiled from Donbass to Kazakhstan in 1941. Then I had to live under the harsh conditions of the curfew. It was in such an environment that German Gref grew up.

His family was simple: his father worked as an engineer, and his mother worked as an accountant. The future famous politician was the third child, he had a brother and sister. German Gref, whose nationality predetermined that he would carry two cultures from childhood, grew up calm and orderly. Parents communicated with their children in two languages: German and Russian.

German Gref: biography

Herman married early, to his former classmate and went with her to Omsk in order to enter the university, but this attempt was unsuccessful. Soon he was taken into the army, where he served for two years in the special forces of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. After serving in the army, he made a second attempt to enter the university. And this time his longed-for dream comes true - he becomes an entrant of the law faculty of OmSU.

By the way, at the end of his studies, he was awarded a red diploma, and besides, he has established himself over the years of study at the university as an active participant in public life. German Gref, whose nationality to some extent hindered his development during the Soviet era, achieved success despite everything.

He later became a graduate student at Leningrad State University (1990-1993). True, after completing his postgraduate studies, Herman was never able to defend his thesis. In order to provide for his family, while still a student, he went to work in construction teams.

In 1990 Gref was a lecturer at the Law Faculty of OSU. In 2011, at RANEPA, after many years, he managed to make another attempt to defend his thesis, which he did successfully.

He is fluent in German and loves to read Goethe.

Moving to St. Petersburg

In 1991, the family moved to the Northern capital and got a job in the administration of the Petrodvorets district. Herman Gref, whose biography is presented to your attention, has been receiving high-ranking positions over and over again since then. Here he first worked for a year as a lawyer, and then for two years headed the KUGI and was the deputy head of the city of Petrodvorets.

During his work, he proved himself to be an intelligent pedant who has a professional acumen. Thus, for three years, he supervised the property of the town-museum in various positions, and later was engaged in the same activity, only at the St. Petersburg level.

In the early 90s, Mayor Sobchak was Gref's scientific advisor at Leningrad State University, so since that time the latter had good connections with politicians, which could not but affect the development of his future career. In addition, he was familiar with Vladimir Putin. Sobchak and Putin are often even called the "godfathers" of German Gref.

1994 marked a new round in German Gref's political career - he became deputy chairman of the KUGI of the St. Petersburg mayor's office. Later, namely in 1997-1998, he served as chairman and vice-governor.

In 1997, German Oskarovich is a member of the board of directors of JSC Lenenergo and becomes vice-governor. And in 1998 he became a member of the collegium of the Ministry of State Property of the Russian Federation and first deputy minister. A year later, he turns out to be a member of the board of the Federal Commission for the Securities Market and, in addition, heads the Center for Strategic Research Foundation.

Moscow career

In 2000, after Gref moved to live in the capital, he was appointed Deputy Minister of State Property of the Russian Federation, later - Minister of Economic Development and Trade.

From 2000 to 2007 he is the Minister of Economic Development and Trade of the Russian Federation in the government of Mikhail Fradkov and Mikhail Kasyanov. At that time, he actively supported Russia in joining the WTO (World Trade Organization). In July 2000, he was appointed as the RF Governor at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and in the same year, somewhat later, he became Deputy RF Governor at the MBRD. From 2011 to the present, Genrikh Oskarovich - Member of the RS Board of Trustees for International Affairs. And since 2007 - the head of Sberbank.

Attitude to sports

German Gref has a positive attitude towards sports and since childhood he was fond of various sports, such as athletics, hockey and basketball. He later took an interest in tennis.

He assures that he trains at least 4 times a week, however, due to his busyness, this is not always possible. In addition, the head of Sberbank insists that all of his top managers visit the gym at least 3 times a week.

German Gref: personal life

The first time Gref got engaged very early, and shortly after the wedding, he and his wife Elena Velikanova had a son. German Gref's wife is currently the designer Yana Golovina, with whom he married in the throne room of the Peterhof reserve. In 2006, they had a daughter. And his son Oleg, from his first marriage, has now graduated from Moscow State University and became vice president of NEO Center.

Banker

Since 2007, German Oskarovich has been the president and chairman of the board of the RF Savings Bank.

According to German Gref, Sberbank demands that competitiveness be the key point in its activities. Therefore, from the moment he started his work at the main bank in Russia, he began a course towards creating a flexible and reliable structure, responsive to market signals, and friendly to depositors. Under his leadership, Sberbank was updated not only externally - the team of top managers was also updated.

Harsh but fair

German Gref's statements about the people and what is happening in the country are sometimes somewhat harsh and carry the harsh truth about reality. In the recent past, a situation arose when German Gref in his speech called Russia a downshifter. This statement did not like the Deputy Speaker of the State Duma Nikolai Levichev, who in response to these words suggested that the politician resign voluntarily.

German Gref once spoke about the people as follows: "As soon as all people understand the basis of their" I ", they self-identify, it will be extremely difficult to manipulate them," meaning that it will be difficult to live in such a society and not easy manage it. Regarding the current position of our country in the world economy, he asserts the following: "Russia is losing competition, and the oil age has come to an end. From now on, the country's only chance is to develop the following three components - science, education and business." It was then that a scandalous statement was made, which some didn’t like, that Russia is a downshifting country - that is, it is a loser.

To change the current situation, Gref suggested joining the technological revolution and changing the education model that has remained since Soviet times. It is with this, in his opinion, that it is necessary to start in order for any shifts for the better to occur.

Here are some more of his quotes:

"We are creating an absolutely unthinkable number of universities that train accountants, our whole country will soon become accountants!"
"The media must be allowed into all the secret processes of civil servants."
"The most difficult choice - nobody can be thrown out" (on the creation of special economic zones).

Scandals

Four criminal cases were associated with Gref's name while he served as vice-governor and chairman of the KUGI of St. Petersburg. One of them is related to the privatization of the palace of Prince Gorchakov. The politician decided to privatize it, but the status of a federal monument contradicted these actions on his part.

The next time he was suspected of taking a bribe. This happened because of the situation when German Gref handed over the Haymarket without competitive bidding to the director of one commercial center. After that, one businessman who wanted to receive the named object was informed that a bribe helped Gref in making this decision - but he was never interrogated in the case.

The third case was related to the Color Printing Plant JSC. German Gref issued an order, according to which a person from the politician's inner circle was to take the position of general director. The prosecutor's office saw this as interference of the authorities in the activities of the organization. This time the case was also not given a course.

And finally, the last criminal case was related to the redistribution of the real estate business in St. Petersburg. Then four large firms could not divide spheres of influence, and Alexander Moshkalov, who at that time was trying to subordinate large real estate agencies to his influence, made an appointment with the president of the city Association of Realtors in Gref's office.

Conclusion

German Oskarovich has achieved great success in politics, but not only. For a long time he has been at the helm of the largest bank in Russia. His personality is somewhat controversial and certainly flamboyant. Herman Gref, whose biography is set out in the article, is known for his hard work, perseverance and great goals. He is an ambitious and versatile person.

"Such large-scale changes cannot go perfectly, but it is good that the elephant (as Gref affectionately called Sberbank after the appointment. - Vedomosti) came to life," says Ruben Vardanyan, the former owner of Troika Dialog, who sold the company to Sberbank, after which worked in it.

Gref for the people

Of course, the transformation of Sberbank would have been impossible without German Gref and the team he assembled, albeit not the first time, believes Sergey Guriev, chief economist at the EBRD.

He is now, probably, one of the best financial CEOs in the world, because the return on capital shown by Sberbank is one of the highest, according to Oleg Tinkov, co-owner of Tinkoff Bank.

Gref's management style is far from all these principles of agile and turquoise corporations (there is complete freedom, there are no clear job descriptions and rigid KPIs. - Vedomosti), which he is so fond of - rather, it is a vertical structure, closed on the personality of Gref himself, there is no democracy , his subordinates are afraid to once again express some comments to him, one of the federal officials knows. At the lower levels, he undoubtedly managed to build a corporate culture, working mechanisms, he introduced a project approach - in this sense, Sberbank is far ahead of other banks, another official argues.

“Gref is very confident in his ideas, fanatically defends them, but then he can admit that he was wrong and lose faith in them for good,” says an official who has long known Gref. When he came to Sberbank, he was finished off by these queues of grandmothers, such disrespect for people and he said from the very beginning how he would like to change this, he recalls.

“Gref once strongly scolded our team at a meeting, announcing our proposals as fascist. And after a short period of time he himself offered the job. Gref chops off the shoulder, can say unpleasant things, and then change his point of view, even if it may take time, "says the second official, Gref's acquaintance.

“I feel comfortable working with Gref. We have a friendly relationship. We are probably quite similar in temperament: quite emotional, maybe even sometimes explosive, ”says Kostin. If we take, for example, the situation with Mechel, he continues, then “as creditors, we were definitely on the same side. It seems to me that in this situation we have managed to achieve good results both for the company and for the banks. "

The role of Gref's personality is enormous, all changes began with him, Vardanyan notes: sometimes due to persistence, sometimes - insolence and emotionality. Not everyone could receive such a credit of political confidence, he points out, and despite the fact that political weight plays an important role, Gref's personal contribution to the history of changes in Sberbank is colossal.

“It was quite difficult to negotiate [the sale of Troika Dialog] with him [Gref], yet he is primarily a strategist and visionary, and only secondarily a businessman. But if you have agreed, then there are no more problems, ”Vardanyan says.

“In Russia, customers are divine”: this is what German Gref said

Anton Novoderezhkin / TASS

“We have been living in managerial chaos for very long periods of time. Then, when the problem is already piling on us, we mobilize all imaginable and inconceivable resources and rush to solve the problem. In such a situation, no one counts either money or human lives - no resources. Everything rushes into the furnace of the result, and in the end the problem is heroically solved ”(Forbes interview, 2016)

Dmitry Serebryakov / TASS

“We are all abstractly for change. Let everything change around, let all power change. But what if the changes affect you personally? For example, you may need to change your lifestyle and habits. Let's say you are accustomed to getting up at 8.30 in the morning, "intercepting" something and going to work. And you have to get up at 6.00 in the morning and start the morning with a 7 km cross, and then go to work not by car, but by bike, for example. I'll see if you want such changes. Yes, you say: leave me alone, you will agree to any changes, just not those that affect you directly "(Vedomosti, 2015)

Denis Grishkin / Vedomosti

“If you use the Russian management style in management from morning to night, it’s hard to demand satisfaction from employees and ask them to pass it on to clients” (interview

Denis Abramov / Vedomosti

“Even respected professors often say that my ideas about introducing regular management in public administration are not applicable in practice. At one meeting I said: you don’t find that it looks funny when professors who have not worked for a day in the civil service or in business sit and tell a person who has spent 16 years in the civil service and eight years in big business that is it not applicable ?! I worked in a municipality, worked in a large city, in a large state and was responsible for reforms in the country. And you tell me what is applicable and what is not! " (Harvard Business Review interview, 2017)

Maxim Stulov / Vedomosti

“I also worked in the government for eight years. It turns out an eight-year cycle - now I have already gone into an extra cycle. You know, fatigue depends on interest. If there is a result, there is also interest. We're incredibly fun to work with. ”(Harvard Business Review interview, 2017)

Best version of yourself

The most difficult thing then was to hire talented people to the team, says Alexander Morozov, financial director of Sberbank. In 2007, the state bank was associated with bureaucracy, confirms Moody’s vice president Olga Ulyanova, who in 2007 herself preferred the international rating agency to the state bank.

The changes began with a complete change of the management team, improvement of business processes, rebranding, Ulyanova lists. The transformation was carried out using the tactics of "small steps", which allowed Sberbank to retain its historically unique competitive advantages. The new team, in her opinion, skillfully used an extensive network, nationwide recognition of the brand, the image of a calm harbor where you can ride out the storm, especially since the Central Bank and financial authorities were and remain ready to support the bank.

“The new team realized in time that the state bank, with its huge and relatively cheap passive base and with a well-organized credit process, is the goose that lays the golden eggs. The main thing is not to deviate from this course towards risky segments and deals, ”says Danilov.

True, out of 10 managers who came to Sberbank to work for Gref, only two remained - financial director Morozov and co-director of Sberbank CIB Alexander Bazarov.

“When selecting candidates for the highest level 10 years ago, we used a negative filter - there is a super goal and a mission, if in doubt, we go to the next one,” recalls Ward Howell President Sergei Vorobyov. Only a third of top managers could not stand the pace of change and a tough corporate culture, he believes, a third left with an increase, the rest are evolving. And this is a good result for such a speed of change in a huge organization, he believes.

At Sberbank, Gref quickly realized that one cannot simply come from point A to point B, the latter always slips away, Vorobyov continues. Gref and his employees have to live in a constantly changing world, he explains, and if, surprising the market, they manage to change technologically quickly, then the corporate culture does not always keep pace with the changes. But this is logical: it is more difficult to change people's behavior and habits.

“Gref correctly creates for the employees the feeling of a burning earth under their feet, a sense of the urgency of changes, to which the team must react more and more rapidly every year,” says Vorobyov. - It is especially hard for those who are closer to him - the top management: they live at the highest speeds, at the mouth of a volcano.

In the strategy until 2020, Sberbank will write down that it will strive to move from bureaucracy and hierarchy to a team game, promised the deputy chairman of the board of the state bank Yulia Chupina in November at the Winning The Hearts management forum. Feedback from employees showed that the corporate culture lacks humanity, respect, openness and cooperation, Chupina noted, and Sberbank is ready to help them become the best version of themselves.

“The feeling that Sberbank is becoming the reincarnation of Uralsib during the times of Nikolai Tsvetkov,” says one of the former top managers of Sberbank. - This is a pretty strong intrusion into the lives of employees. And of course, not everyone likes it, but it is almost impossible to convince Gref ”.

The leader's task is to set the direction and manage to maneuver between threats and opportunities, reliability and changes, which in itself is a great challenge that forces a change in style, says Vorobyov: “The ability to play with the team, achieving greater efficiency and speed, constantly raising the bar, but also supporting at every next step, it requires both effort and patience from all participants. "

Monopoly and risks

Gref's team inherited the rich monopolistic legacy of Sberbank, but its market share has been growing all these years in all areas: lending, deposits, investment business. With the arrival of new managers, Sberbank had an ever more tangible effect on deposit rates, one of the former employees of the state bank shares, and he made good money: “Just calculate how much you can earn if, having a deposit base of 20 trillion rubles, you reduce the rate by only 1 percentage point ".

Ulyanova considers a balanced approach to risk-taking as the main factor in Sberbank's successful history: “Among all state-owned banks, Sberbank has the most balanced and diversified loan portfolio.” Sberbank's twenty largest borrowers total about 1.5 of its Tier 1 capital, while other large state-owned banks - VTB, Gazprombank and Rosselkhozbank - have the same or a greater proportion of their capital from their 10 largest borrowers. Diversification of credit risks allowed Sberbank to incur lower credit losses during the crisis, Ulyanova is sure, to remain profitable, accumulate capital, which lays the foundation for technological transformations.

“It's nice to talk about Sberbank, it is a rare success story of this magnitude,” Ulyanova admits. Sberbank is a rare case: a large financial institution does not ask for money to replenish its capital. In particular, unlike VTB and Rosselkhozbank, it did not participate in the capitalization program through OFZ.

The bank is engaged in a lot of project lending and, although loans issued for political reasons cannot be ruled out, they are insignificant from the point of view of the bank's business, Ulyanova concludes.

The main challenge for a state-owned company is the ability to resist political temptations, for example, not to meet offers to issue loans to companies with political connections, Guriev is convinced: “As a member of the board of directors in 2008–2014, I can say that in the overwhelming majority of cases, Sberbank succeeded deal".

“Success is primarily determined by the team, the professionals who work at the bank, the technologies that the bank uses,” Kostin said. - I would say this: relations with a shareholder, relations with the authorities, of course, are important, but they are not the determining and key factor of success. Because you can have a great political resource and poor performance. "

Europe, space, friendship and other failures

Expansion to Europe and Turkey began in 2012 - but ran into sanctions and negative rates from the European Central Bank and began to look like traveling with a suitcase without a handle. Sberbank Europe AG (former Volksbank International) Sberbank bought for 505 million euros, it is represented in 10 countries of Central and Eastern Europe. Sberbank paid € 2.8 billion for the Turkish DenizBank. In Europe, geopolitical tensions and the specifics of a market with low rates and profitability played a role, and in Turkey, where DenizBank has good performance, a very difficult and competitive environment, Danilov points out.

Sberbank - primarily due to its scale - does not always show flexibility, Zadornov points out: the reform of the organizational structure has not been completed there, the tasks that were set in the strategies of Sberbank to reduce the number of people are not regularly fulfilled. Only in 2017 did Sberbank carry out a noticeable staff optimization.

If Sberbank was able to standardize work with small businesses and the population, then with the titans of Russian business - so far not very much. One of the largest borrowers - according to bankers, is $ 5-7 billion in debt - businesses owned by the family of Mikhail Gutseriev. This is an unprecedented amount of risk that Sberbank has accepted for one client group. Among the twenty largest borrowers of Sberbank, Fitch notes two related to the oil and gas sector and real estate, which owe RUB 500 billion, which is a similar $ 7 billion. Danilov declined to talk about these borrowers. Several bankers explained this situation by the good relationship between Gutseriev and Gref.

Gref did not stand on ceremony with another large borrower, the main owner of Eurocement Group, Filaret Galchev. He was absent from the Sberbank credit committee, where the restructuring of the company's debts was discussed. Galchev was going into space and studied at the Cosmonaut Training Center. Gref, Vedomosti wrote in 2015, contacted the leadership of Roscosmos and asked to leave Galchev on Earth - “he has a lot of problems here”. Representatives of the businessman do not comment on the situation, but point out that Galchev did not fly by the decision of the Roskosmos management: instead of Sarah Brighton, test cosmonaut from Kazakhstan Aydin Aimbetov went to the ISS.

To its credit, Sberbank has to say that it never drags on recognizing losses, Danilov points out, citing the restructuring of Mechel's debts by more than 80 billion rubles as an example. Sberbank was the only creditor who created a 100% reserve for them and threatened Mechel with bankruptcy. VTB and Gazprombank took a softer position in relation to the company and its owner Igor Zyuzin, while Gref repeatedly said that the case was heading towards bankruptcy.

System support

Ten years ago, no one could have imagined how long Sberbank would be able to go, says Guriev: it has become a leading Russian company not only in terms of capitalization, but also in terms of service quality and focus on international innovation. But Guriev considers the main achievement to be the proof of the “existence theorem” of meritocracy: “The team managed to show that in Russia - as in other countries - it is possible to build a successful service business based on human capital and innovation. This is critically important for the Russian economy. "

Sberbank, even in the worst years, was the main generator of the banking system's profit, but if earlier its share was 40-50%, then after the crisis - 60-70%, Ulyanova points out. The crisis contributed to the deepening of the gap between strong and weak players, which Sberbank was able to effectively take advantage of: it relied on even more attraction of retail deposits and by the end of 2015 - much earlier than other banks and the system as a whole - replaced the expensive money of the Central Bank with deposits ...

Until the last crisis, the banking sector provided one-seventh of the profits in the Russian economy, now about a tenth, so the role of Sberbank is very great, Zadornov admits. Sberbank, in addition, sets trends in the technology market, which is important both for competitors and for companies from other market sectors, he is sure. The former owner of B&N Bank Mikail Shishkhanov admitted to Vedomosti that he simply looked at Sberbank and repeated after him.

Foundations instead of oligarchs

“It is known how we had some additional issues [people's IPOs] - they were bought by the oligarchs on instructions,” said Dmitry Orlov, banking guru and owner of Vozrozhdenie Bank, in 2010, clearly referring to Sberbank. Among the shareholders then was the owner of Nafta-Moscow, Suleiman Kerimov, Galchev, the founder of Inteko and the wife of the then mayor of Moscow, Elena Baturina. The previous team of managers actively lent businessmen when they bought shares in Sberbank, since they could have been pledged to the bank. Gref stopped this practice. Later, Western funds became interested in investing in the bank - in 2017, non-residents own 45.4% of the shares of the state bank. Only the Central Bank has a large share.

Western investors buy and hold his shares despite the sanctions. Such shareholders make decisions based on profits and dividend payments, and these indicators for Sberbank are very strong and rely on fundamental rather than opportunistic factors, Ulyanova notes.

The question of what will happen to the bank when Gref is not there, Tinkov argues: “In a sense, investors are hostages of this success - if he leaves, the bank's capitalization will decrease. But this and Apple went with Stephen Jobs, and Google. "

Even after Gref leaves, the bank will continue to move by inertia - this aircraft carrier is equally difficult to transform and sink, Vardanyan is sure.

Tinkov believes that Gref's personal managerial resource prevails over politics: "We compete with them [Sberbank], and their decisions are subordinated to commerce, not politics."

Margarita Papchenkova and Elena Mukhametshina contributed to this article

A reformer of post-Soviet Russia. - “Vedomosti”), are you going to do the same with Sberbank now? " - this was the first question of one of the shareholders, to whom the new president was introduced, Kommersant wrote.

The smile of fate is that in order to work in the state bank, Gref had to turn from a liberal economist into an authoritarian ruler: he had to set the pace of change by his own example. “When you need to reform something efficiently and in a short time, you don't need democracy. Perhaps you need a dictator, ”says one of Gref's acquaintances.

At the end of 2016, at the VKLive session, Gref said that one of his goals for 2016 is to praise people more often: “I have a typical profile of a perfectionist, and perfectionism is a mental illness, and you try to do everything as best as possible all the time, even though it is not optimal, it is not necessary. "

Minority shareholders appreciated Gref's perfectionism and are now seriously afraid of his departure. “Russia has a sad experience with the energy sector, which was very strong when Anatoly Chubais was at the head, but after his departure a vacuum formed. Investors lost 80–90% of their money in the absence of such a charismatic personality who lobbied for the interests of the entire sector, ”said Aivaras Abromavicius, partner of the East Capital fund, in 2016 (quoted by RBC). In response, Gref promised to leave two successors - but few believe that such an option is possible.

Faster than the market

The new team had to completely restructure the lending process, and at the same time - to think about how to reduce the technological gap with private banks. The state bank had to move from 17 different technology platforms to one, which took more than five years. The retail business was built almost from scratch - in 2007 it was a sad sight: queues and red tape, employees who, due to their monopoly position, had to practically fight off customers, bankers joked. The new team managed to strengthen the strong position of Sberbank in loans and deposits even more.

Publicly Gref most of all complained about the queues in the offices and the need to change the mentality of the staff.

For several years, the technological developments of Sberbank allowed it to make a significant part of the population's settlements non-cash - and this was a breakthrough. “Everyone very quickly forgot what it was like to come to a Sberbank branch, say, seven years ago,” recalls Fitch analyst Alexander Danilov. “For such a huge car, this is a pretty quick transformation. Now even the subsidiaries of Western banks lag behind Sberbank in terms of the quality of retail products. "

Modern technologies are the main one of those huge changes that have taken place in Sberbank over the past 10 years, VTB President Andrey Kostin is convinced: it is the basis for the success of both today and tomorrow in the banking sector. Sberbank's achievements in this area lay a good foundation for its development over the next 5-10 years, he said.

The biggest and most obvious achievement of the new team is the radical reform of lending. This made it possible to constantly increase the business, while keeping risks under control, explains the president of VTB 24 Mikhail Zadornov. Sberbank is changing along with the market, and in many things it is ahead of the market, he points out: the staff has been significantly strengthened, the best system of constant retraining on the market has been created. The third key change is manufacturability, the development of remote channels, where Sberbank forms trends, sums up Zadornov.

Gref for the people

Of course, the transformation of Sberbank would have been impossible without German Gref and the team he assembled, albeit not the first time, believes Sergey Guriev, chief economist at the EBRD.

He is now, probably, one of the best financial CEOs in the world, because the return on capital shown by Sberbank is one of the highest, according to Oleg Tinkov, co-owner of Tinkoff Bank.

Gref's management style is far from all these principles of agile and turquoise corporations (complete freedom reigns, there are no clear job descriptions and strict KPIs. - Vedomosti), which he is so fond of - rather, it is a vertical structure, closed on the personality of Gref himself, there is no democracy , his subordinates are afraid to once again express some comments to him, one of the federal officials knows. At the lower levels, he undoubtedly managed to build a corporate culture, working mechanisms, he introduced a project approach - in this sense, Sberbank is far ahead of other banks, another official argues.

“Gref is very confident in his ideas, fanatically defends them, but then he can admit that he was wrong and lose faith in them for good,” says an official who has long known Gref. When he came to Sberbank, he was finished off by these lines of grandmothers, such disrespect for people, and he said from the very beginning how he would like to change this, he recalls.

“Gref once strongly scolded our team at a meeting, declaring our proposals fascist. And after a short period of time he himself offered the job. Gref chops off the shoulder, can say unpleasant things, and then change his point of view, even if it may take time, ”says the second official, Gref's acquaintance.

The role of Gref's personality is enormous, all changes began with him, Vardanyan notes: sometimes due to persistence, sometimes - insolence and emotionality. Not everyone could get such a credit of political confidence, he points out, and despite the fact that political weight plays an important role, Gref's personal contribution to the history of changes in Sberbank is colossal.

Best version of yourself

“The new team realized in time that the state bank, with its huge and relatively cheap passive base and with a well-built credit process, is the goose that lays the golden eggs. The main thing is not to deviate from this course towards risky segments and deals, ”says Danilov.

True, out of 10 managers who came to Sberbank to work for Gref, only two remained - financial director Morozov and co-director of Sberbank CIB Alexander Bazarov.

“When selecting candidates for the highest level 10 years ago we used a negative filter - there is a super goal and a mission, if in doubt, we go to the next one,” recalls Ward Howell President Sergei Vorobyov. Only a third of top managers could not stand the pace of change and a tough corporate culture, he believes, a third left with an increase, the rest are evolving. And this is a good result for such a speed of change in a huge organization, he believes.

“Gref correctly creates for the employees the feeling of a burning earth under their feet, a sense of the urgency of changes, to which the team must react more and more rapidly every year,” says Vorobyov. - It is especially hard for those who are closer to him - top management: they live at the highest speeds, at the mouth of a volcano.

“The feeling that Sberbank is becoming the reincarnation of Uralsib in the times of Nikolai Tsvetkov,” says one of the former top managers of Sberbank. - This is a pretty strong intrusion into the lives of employees. And of course, not everyone likes it, but it is almost impossible to convince Gref ”.

Monopoly and risks

Ulyanova considers a balanced approach to risk-taking as the main factor in Sberbank's successful history: "Among all state-owned banks, Sberbank has the most balanced and diversified loan portfolio." Sberbank's twenty largest borrowers total about 1.5 of its Tier 1 capital, while other large state-owned banks - VTB, Gazprombank and Rosselkhozbank - have the same or a greater proportion of their capital from their 10 largest borrowers. Diversification of credit risks allowed Sberbank to incur lower credit losses during the crisis, Ulyanova is sure, to remain profitable, accumulate capital, which lays the foundation for technological transformations.

The main challenge for a state-owned company is the ability to resist political temptations, for example, not to meet offers to issue loans to companies with political connections, Guriev is convinced: “As a member of the board of directors in 2008-2014, I can say that in the vast majority of cases Sberbank was deal".

“Success is primarily determined by the team, by the professionals who work at the bank, by the technologies that the bank uses,” Kostin said. - I would say this: relations with the shareholder, relations with the authorities, of course, are important, but they are not the determining and key factor of success. Because you can have a lot of political resources and poor performance. "

Europe, space, friendship and other failures

Expansion to Europe and Turkey began in 2012 - but ran into sanctions and negative rates from the European Central Bank and began to look like traveling with a suitcase without a handle. Sberbank Europe AG (formerly Volksbank International) Sberbank bought for 505 million euros, it is represented in 10 countries of Central and Eastern Europe. Sberbank paid € 2.8 billion for the Turkish DenizBank. In Europe, geopolitical tensions and the specifics of a market with low rates and profitability played a role, and in Turkey, where DenizBank has good performance, a very difficult and competitive environment, Danilov points out.

If Sberbank was able to standardize work with small businesses and the population, then with the titans of Russian business - not so far. One of the largest borrowers - according to bankers, is $ 5-7 billion in debt - businesses owned by the family of Mikhail Gutseriev. This is an unprecedented amount of risk that Sberbank has accepted for one client group. Among the twenty largest borrowers of Sberbank, Fitch notes two associated with the oil and gas sector and real estate, which owe RUB 500 billion, which is a similar $ 7 billion, Danilov declined to talk about these borrowers. Several bankers explained this situation by the good relationship between Gutseriev and Gref.

With another large borrower, the main owner of Eurocement Group Filaret Galchev, Gref did not stand on ceremony. He did not appear on the Sberbank credit committee, where the restructuring of the company's debts was discussed. Galchev was going into space and studied at the Cosmonaut Training Center. Gref, Vedomosti wrote in 2015, contacted the leadership of Roscosmos and asked to leave Galchev on Earth - "he has a lot of problems here." Representatives of the businessman do not comment on the situation, but point out that Galchev did not fly by the decision of the Roskosmos management: instead of Sarah Brighton, test cosmonaut from Kazakhstan Aydin Aimbetov went to the ISS.

System support

Sberbank, even in the worst years, was the main generator of the banking system's profit, but if earlier its share was 40-50%, then after the crisis - 60-70%, Ulyanova points out. The crisis contributed to the deepening of the gap between strong and weak players, which Sberbank was able to take advantage of: it relied on even more attraction of retail deposits and by the end of 2015 - much earlier than other banks and the system as a whole - replaced the expensive money of the Central Bank with deposits ...

Suleiman Kerimov, Galchev, founder of Inteko and wife of the then mayor of Moscow Elena Baturina. The previous management team actively provided loans to businessmen when they bought Sberbank shares, since they could have been pledged to the bank. Gref stopped this practice. Later, Western funds became interested in investing in the bank - in 2017, non-residents own 45.4% of the shares of the state bank. Only the Central Bank has a large share.

Even after Gref leaves, the bank will continue to move by inertia - this aircraft carrier is equally difficult to transform and sink, Vardanyan is sure.

Tinkov believes that Gref's personal managerial resource prevails over politics: "We compete with them [Sberbank], and their decisions are subordinated to commerce, not politics."

German Oskarovich Gref - Russian statesman, Minister of Economic Development and Trade of the Russian Federation (2000-2007), President and Chairman of the Board of Sberbank of Russia. Co-Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Mariinsky Theater, member of the Board of Trustees of the Russian International Affairs Council and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Higher School of Economics, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Foundation for the Support of the Deaf-Blind So-Unity. Chairman of the Board of the Center for Strategic Research. Member of the Board of Directors of Yandex. Member of the Board of Directors of the American banking holding Morgan Stanley.

Herman Gref's family

German Gref was born on February 8, 1964 in the village of Panfilovo, Irtysh district, Pavlodar region, Kazakh SSR, where in 1941 his family, ethnic Germans, was exiled.

Herman's father, Oskar Fedorovich Gref, worked as an engineer. German Gref's ancestors, German colonists, settled in Russia more than two hundred years ago. Paternal ancestors first lived in Western Ukraine, in the Volyn province, but during the First World War they were resettled to the Donbass.

Herman Gref's mother, Emilia Filippovna, worked as an economist in the village council - comes from the Volga Germans. There were three children in the family (Herman is the youngest son). When Herman was one and a half years old, trouble happened in the family - his father died.

Herman Gref's education

Herman Oskarovich studied well at school. The young man was engaged in Komsomol work, was a class Komsomol organizer. In high school, Herman had a dream - to continue studying in Moscow. German Gref dreamed of entering MGIMO. But when he asked for a Komsomol characterization in his native school, they explained to Herman that with his biography (more precisely, a pedigree) they could not give a direction to such a prestigious university.

Then German Gref went to Omsk to enter the law faculty of Omsk University. But I failed to become a student. One teacher advised him to serve in the army, and thereby acquire the necessary seniority. Gref did just that.

German Gref served in the city of Chapaevsk, Kuibyshev Region, in the 28th division of the Directorate of Special Units of the Internal Troops of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs, which guarded high-security defense facilities. At the end of the service, German Oskarovich received a recommendation from the command for admission to the university and, having retired to the reserve, in 1984 entered the preparatory department of the law faculty of Omsk University, and in 1985 German Gref became a student.

In 1990, German Oskarovich graduated from the law faculty of Omsk State University with a degree in jurisprudence and remained there as a teacher.

Students of the Faculty of Law of Omsk State University, graduated in 1990: German Gref (bottom row, first from the left) (Photo: superomsk.ru)

In 1990-1993, Gref studied at the graduate school of the Law Faculty of Leningrad University. His scientific advisor was Anatoly Sobchak, to whom he came on the recommendation of the dean of the law faculty of Omsk State University, S. N. Baburin.

In 2011, already being the head of Sberbank, German Gref defended his dissertation at the Russian Academy of National Economy and Civil Service under the President of the Russian Federation.

Herman Gref's work and career

While studying in graduate school, German Gref in parallel in St. Petersburg in 1991 worked as a legal adviser to the Committee for Economic Development and Property of the Petrodvorets Administration. In 1992, in the biography of German Gref, he worked as the head of the Petrodvoretsky District Agency of the Property Management Committee of the Administration of the City of St. Petersburg. In 1992-1994, German Oskarovich Gref - Chairman of the Property Management Committee, Deputy Head of the Administration of the Petrodvorets District of St. Petersburg.

In 1994, German Gref became deputy chairman, and then first deputy chairman of the Committee for City Property Management of the St. Petersburg Mayor's Office.

In 1997 German Gref became vice-governor and chairman of the City Property Management Committee of the Administration (KUGI) of St. Petersburg. At the same time, Gref became a member of the board of directors of JSC Lenenergo. In 1998, German Gref joined the board of directors of the Sea Port of St. Petersburg company and the board of directors of the Petersburg - 5th channel company.

German Gref was appointed Chairman of the Committee for Management of City Property of the City of St. Petersburg (KUGI) (Photo: Ivan Kurtov / TASS)

During his work in the administration of St. Petersburg, German Gref met Vladimir Putin, Alexei Kudrin, Dmitry Kozak, Dmitry Medvedev. German Oskarovich and Vladimir Putin (then vice-mayor) were consultants and members of the advisory board of the German real estate company SPAG, created at the initiative of the mayor's office of the northern capital.

German Gref and his work in the government

In 1998, German Gref became a member of the collegium of the Ministry of State Property of the Russian Federation and First Deputy Minister, and in 1999 he became a member of the collegium of the Federal Commission for the Securities Market, head of the Center for Strategic Research.

During the formation of the government of Mikhail Kasyanov, German Gref was invited to the post of Minister of Economic Development. German Oskarovich held this position from 2000 to 2007.

German Gref was the main lobbyist for Russia's entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO). Also, at various times he was a member of the board of directors of many state-owned companies (Gazprom, Svyazinvest, etc.). On February 24, 2004, the Kasyanov government was dismissed. Gref also resigned from the post of minister.

In the next government Mikhail Fradkov German Gref again took up the post of Minister of Economic Development and Trade. As a minister, German Oskarovich acquired a reputation as a "steadfast" market leader and liberal, ready to carry out the most unpopular reforms at any cost. He believed in private property and the need for the maximum withdrawal of the state from the economy.

In 2007, President Putin accepted the resignation of Fradkov's government.

German Gref and his work at Sberbank

Since October 2007, the biography of German Gref has been associated with Sberbank. German Oskarovich is the chairman of the board of the country's largest bank, Sberbank of Russia.

At Sberbank, the first thing German Gref did was purge the management. According to media reports, German Gref also raised the salaries of top managers of Sberbank. German Oskarovich himself was registered in the top five of the highest paid managers in Russia. In 2013, Gref entered the TOP-5 of the Forbes list (5th place) of the most expensive managers in Russia with an annual income of $ 15 million. The share of Sberbank of Russia owned by G.O. Gref: 0.003096% (stake price - $ 2 , 19 million). In 2014, he again found himself in a similar Forbes rating in 4th place with an income of $ 16 million.In 2015, German Gref was on the list of the most expensive company executives of the same publication; he took 6th place with $ 13.5 million, by the end of 2016, Gref is in third place with an income of $ 11 million.

In 2016, the arrival of German Gref in one of the branches of Sberbank in a suit of a disabled person got into all the news, the head of the bank tried to get a loan incognito. To feel like a disabled person, Gref was dressed in a special expensive specialized suit from Gert, imitating various physical limitations. According to the top manager, I saw only blurry outlines of faces and large numbers in glasses. As a result of the experiment, the head of Sberbank noted that the service for clients with disabilities should be improved.

Sberbank CEO German Gref (foreground) in a specialized GERT suit (Photo: Anton Novoderezhkin / TASS)

Many Russians did not understand why they need to spend money on Gert suits to better serve their disabled clients. Probably, the bank has a lot of free money, for at least eight months of 2016, according to Gref, Sberbank earned a record profit for all the years of its existence.

On May 29, 2015, at the annual meeting of shareholders, the powers of German Gref as head of Sberbank were extended until December 2019. German Gref noted that he intends to lead the largest bank in Russia until the expiration of the current contract with shareholders.

Scandals and loud statements by German Gref

At the same time, there are difficulties in the Russian economy outside Sberbank, according to ex-minister German Gref. Gref's statement at the January 2016 Gaidar Forum caused a great resonance, in which he noted that Russia had already lost the competition in the global economy and was included in the list of downshifting countries.

German Gref during his speech (Photo: Viktor Chernov / Russian Look / Global Look Press)

Gref's words caused a lot of negative reaction. Deputy Speaker of the State Duma Nikolay Levichev urged German Gref to resign. Member of the Federation Council Committee on International Affairs Igor Morozov for this he called Gref "a dead brute", recalling the statements of German Oskarovich that it is easier for him to buy 100 Boeings than to give this money to Russian manufacturers.

Sergei Glazyev, aide to the President of the Russian Federation for Regional Economic Integration, said that "if Russia lost the competition, it was thanks to Gref and his colleagues," who "formed an anti-Russian model of the state in the 90s." Russian President's press secretary Dmitry Peskov said on this occasion that the Kremlin "does not join this or that camp" in the discussion between presidential adviser Sergei Glazyev and the head of Sberbank German Gref.

German Oskarovich has been president and chairman of the board of Sberbank of Russia since the fall of 2007, a former minister of economic development of the Russian Federation, 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 exiled during the war. Father, Oskar Fedorovich, worked as a simple engineer, and mother, Emilia Filipovna, was 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, the boy lost his father, then his grandmother came to the aid of his mother - it was she who brought up such qualities as restraint and modesty in her grandchildren.

He studied well and was distinguished by exemplary behavior. He did not particularly like exact sciences, but he enjoyed playing sports and even was the 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 law faculty at Omsk State University. After receiving a degree in jurisprudence in 1990, he entered the graduate school of the law faculty of Leningrad State University.

In 2011, already being the head of Sberbank, he defended his dissertation at the Russian Academy of National Economy and Civil Service under the President of the Russian Federation.

Labor activity

In 1991-1998 he worked at the St. Petersburg mayor's office, where he worked his way up from a legal adviser to the Committee for Economic Development and Property 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 President of Russia, Vladimir Putin. The Center for Strategic Research (CSR) under his leadership was preparing Putin's economic program when he ran for the first presidential term in 2000.

Heading the CSR, 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 - chairman of the board of Sberbank, and Elvira Nabiullina, the current chairman of the Bank of Russia, was appointed to his post in the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade.

As head of Sberbank, he announced a radical reform aimed at making the bank a modern client-oriented lending institution. He outlined this goal as follows: "We must prove that elephants can dance!"

Hobbies

He is fond of running. Before the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, he took part in the final stage of the Olympic torch relay.

After joining Sberbank, he ordered the top management to visit the corporate gym and swimming pool before meetings on Saturdays and renewed the fading tradition of holding corporate sports days in the company - Sberbankiads.

Family

At the moment he is married with a second marriage, his wife, Yana, is the founder of the Khoroshevskaya progymnasium, which includes a kindergarten and an elementary school. She is a designer by education.

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.

Family member biographies

Yana Vladimirovna (wife)

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