Petr Aven

Petr Olegovich Aven
Petr Aven speaking in New York, 2015
Born	March 16, 1955 Moscow, Russia
Nationality	Russian
Education	Moscow State University
Occupation	International businessman
Known for	Alfa-Bank
Net worth	US$6.4 billion (June 2014)
Children	two

Petr Olegovich Aven (Russian: Петр Олегович Авен; b. March 16, 1955) is an International businessman, economist and politician. He heads Alfa-Bank, Russia's largest commercial bank. He is a member of the Board of Directors at LetterOne Group. L1 Group was established in 2013 to invest in international projects in energy, telecommunications and technology. Petr Aven is also the author of some scientific papers and articles on economic and trade issues and is quoted in the financial and trade press on matters related to the Russian economy and trade policy. In 2015 Petr Aven and Alfred Kokh published Gaidar’s Revolution: The Inside Account of the Economic Transformation of Russia, drawing on their experience of the Russian Government and the former First Minister for the Economy, Yegor Gaidar. In his review of the book, John Lloyd of the Financial Times called it “an illuminating study of the reformers who sought to revive Russia’s post- Soviet economy.”

In 2015 he was named number 301 in the richest people in the world, with a worth of around $5.1 billion.

Born in Moscow, his father, professor of computer science Oleg Aven (Russian: Олег Иванович Авен), was half Latvian and half Russian and his mother was from a Jewish family. His paternal grandfather Janis Aven was a Latvian rifleman. Petr Aven graduated from Moscow State University in 1977 and holds a PhD in Economics (1980). Subsequently, Petr was a senior researcher at the All-Union Institute for Systems Studies at the USSR Academy of Sciences and then spent time at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Laxenburg, Austria (1989–1991).