Background and career
Gennady Nikolayevich Timchenko (Russian: Геннадий Николаевич Тимченко, also spelled Guennadi Timtchenko; born 9 November 1952) is a Russian oligarch and billionaire businessman. He founded and owns the private investment firm Volga Group. He was previously a co-owner of Gunvor Group. Timchenko has been close friends with Russian leader Vladimir Putin since the early 1990s. In 1991, Putin gave Timchenko an oil export license. Timchenko then founded Gunvor, which has now exported billions of dollars' worth of Russian oil. Timchenko's investment firm Volga Group owns a large stake of shares of the natural gas giant Novatek. The Pandora Papers leaks revealed that a Timchenko firm, which played a key role in the Novatek investment, obtained massive loans through anonymous offshore shell companies. Timchenko was sanctioned by the US over Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea. He was about to be sanctioned further by the government of the United Kingdom just before the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. As of March 2022, Timchenko was 205th on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, with an estimated fortune of US $10.3 billion; he is the sixth richest person in Russia. He is known for being the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Kontinental Hockey League, and President of the SKA Saint Petersburg ice hockey club. He is a citizen of Russia, Finland, and Armenia.
Timchenko was born in Leninakan, Armenian SSR, Soviet Union (now Gyumri, Armenia), in 1952. His father was in the Soviet military and served in the Second World War. He lived for six years of his childhood (from 1959 to 1965) in the German Democratic Republic (learning to speak German) and in the Ukrainian SSR. In 1976, he graduated from the Mechanical Institute of Saint Petersburg, then named Leningrad, as an electrical engineer, according to a 2008 interview with the Wall Street Journal.
In 1977, Timchenko began to work as an engineer for the Izhorsky plant near Saint Petersburg; the plant specialized in building power generators. The state-owned company then moved him to their trade department. From 1982 to 1988, he worked as a senior engineer with the Ministry of Foreign Trade. In 1988 when Russia started to liberalize its economy, he was promoted to Deputy Director of state-owned oil company Kirishineftekhimexport, which was created in 1987 and based at the Kirishi refinery, one of the three largest refineries in the RSFSR. In 1991, Timchenko decided to leave Russia and was hired by a Finland-based company, Urals Finland Oy, specializing in importing Russian oil to Europe. He became a Finnish citizen. While Anatoly Sobchak was in exile, Timchenko was the link between Sobchak and Vladimir Putin. In 1995, Urals Finland Oy was renamed International Petroleum Products Oy (IPP); Timchenko then became deputy and later CEO of IPP OY. In 1997, he co-founded the global commodity trading company Gunvor with Swedish businessman Torbjörn Törnqvist. Timchenko sold his stake to Törnqvist in March 2014, a day before the U.S. sanctions began. In 2007, Timchenko founded the Volga Group (Volga Resources Group) private investment fund. Volga group holds his Russian and international assets in the energy, transport, infrastructure, financial services and consumer sectors.
Redut, also known as Redoubt or Redut-Antiterror and formerly known as "Shield", is a Russian Private Military and Security Company (PMSC) that is part of the "Antiterror-family", which consists of similarly named PMSCs which protect commercial operations of Russian companies. Redut is currently deployed by Russia in the Russian invasion of Ukraine, for which it was sanctioned. Several fighters of the group have been convicted of war crimes during the invasion. Gennady Timchenko and Oleg Deripaska reportedly are major backers of the company. The PMC received armored personnel carriers, helmets, and protective vests from them. Redut provided services for Timchenko's companies, including the deployment of snipers, pioneers and guards. Redut formations have been deployed to protect convoys, corporate real estate—including oil production facilities of JSC Stroytransgaz in Syria.
Timchenko was the co-founder (along with Torbjörn Törnqvist) of the Gunvor Group, a corporation registered in Cyprus; it does business in trading and logistics related to the international energy market. On 19 March 2014, Timchenko sold his stake in Gunvor to the other co-founder, Torbjörn Törnqvist. The sale was made the day before Timchenko was included on the United States sanctions list in the wake of the annexing of Crimea by Russia. Timchenko said he had sold his stake in anticipation of "potential economic sanctions" and to "ensure with certainty the continued and uninterrupted operations of Gunvor Group". The value of the transaction was not disclosed.
In 2007, Timchenko founded the Luxembourg-based fund Volga Resources. The fund, which consolidates Timchenko's assets, was renamed in June 2013 as Volga Group and introduced at the Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum. He noted that, for the next few years, his group will focus on the development of infrastructure projects in Russia. The purpose of this fund is "based on direct and indirect investments in value-driven assets in Russia and internationally that produce consistent, long-term returns". The group owns assets in the energy, transportation and infrastructure development, as well as financial services, consumer goods and real estate. Its most notable investments are in gas company Novatek and petrochemical company Sibur.
Sources
Net-worth figure: Celebrity Net Worth (October 2026), in USD. Biography and career facts: the person's Wikipedia article and linked reporting. Snapshot date for all StarWorth figures: 28 October 2026.
