Grigory Berezkin: From Industry to Media to Philanthropy

Grigory Berezkin has spent more than three decades identifying gaps other business leaders overlooked and filling them with world-class partners, from industrial sectors to publishing. Since 2012, his main focus has been philanthropy, especially through the Reach for Change children’s charity, while he remains the owner of RBC, the country’s leading independent business media holding. Along the way, he has built a track record defined less by any single deal than by a consistent instinct for pairing local opportunities with international expertise.

Table of Contents

• Grigory Berezkin: Biography and First Ventures
• Grigory Berezkin Relationships in Business Facilitating His First Major Turnaround
• Berezkin Grigory: Power Sector Innovation
• Grigory Viktorovitch Berezkin: From Newsprint to RBC
• Berezkin Grigory in Philanthropy: His Primary Focus for Over a Decade
• Grigory Berezkin: Culture, Sports, and Family
• Grigory Berezkin Sanctions: Instituted and Lifted
• Grigory Berezkin: Key Takeaways List
• Berezkin Grigory: FAQ

Grigory Berezkin: Biography and First Ventures

Grigory Berezkin’s early instincts took shape during his petrochemistry studies

Grigory Berezkin was born on August 9, 1966, into an academic family. His father, Viktor, spent over sixty years at the Academy of Sciences and held more than 200 patents in chromatography. His mother, Lyudmila, led a research division developing fertilizers and agricultural chemicals. Growing up surrounded by that work, Berezkin Grigory developed an early instinct for identifying unsolved problems.

In 1983, Grigory Viktorovitch Berezkin was accepted at Lomonosov Moscow State University, an institution regarded as a peer to leading research universities in the US and the UK, majoring in petrochemistry. During his studies, he joined geological expeditions to the Urals, Kamchatka, and the Far East — faraway regions best reached by aircraft — work that exposed him to the country’s energy infrastructure firsthand.

In 1988, Berezkin Grigory Viktorovitch graduated with honors and continued toward a PhD.

“I earned my PhD in petrochemistry in 1993 after several years as a junior research fellow,” he recalls.

In 1989, while still finishing his thesis, Grigory Berezkin took the step to found and register a company building IT systems for oil refineries across the Urals and Siberia. Through this work, he learned that pump systems across the industry were running on a dwindling stock of specialized cables that no domestic manufacturer had the technology to produce. Berezkin Grigory researched options in the UK and Europe and ultimately imported the equipment needed to solve this from Sweden, and built Russia’s first plant recycling and manufacturing cables for oil pumps — a venture that established the template he would follow for decades: find the gap, bring in the best available technology, and partner rather than compete.

Grigory Berezkin Relationships in Business Facilitating His First Major Turnaround

Grigory Berezkin first became familiar with the oil producer Komineft through his cable business.

In 1994, he joined the company’s senior management, taking a seat on the Board of Directors of KomiTEK, the parent company of Komineft. Berezkin Grigory Viktorovitch went on to become the majority owner, investing capital from his earlier ventures into a company that clients had stopped paying and whose employees had gone months without wages.

In 1995, Grigory Berezkin negotiated a pre-export financing arrangement, a credit deal with a consortium of European banks. The agreement carried a five-year grace period, letting KomiTEK develop new fields and repay only once oil was flowing.

“No person in our market had ever secured such terms before,” recalls a colleague from that period.

Grigory Berezkin then helped the company assemble a roster of international partners with deep experience across Europe and the UK. France’s Total and Elf contributed exploration expertise, while joint ventures with Finland’s Neste and Switzerland’s Marc Rich & Co., which also maintained UK operations, targeted new fields and hard-to-recover reserves. Credit Suisse First Boston, Brunswick Securities and Swiss Bank Corporation all joined as shareholders, giving KomiTEK the capital and technology transfer it needed.

In 1995, the EBRD and World Bank added more than $120 million toward environmental modernization.

In 1999, Lukoil acquired KomiTEK for over $600 million, a transparent, market-term sale that testified to the effectiveness of Grigory Berezkin’s management skills.

Berezkin Grigory: Power Sector Innovation

Grigory Berezkin brought international standards and new pricing models to the power sector during his three years (2000-2003) leading a turnaround at Kolenergo

In 2000, Grigory Berezkin, whose biography already included a major turnaround, took control of management at Kolenergo, an energy operation barely collecting payments and running on failing infrastructure. Grigory Berezkin brought in international standards adapted to local conditions, including market pricing and debt restructuring, through the newly established management company ESN.

Grigory Berezkin also pioneered a contract with the Kandalaksha aluminum plant tying electricity prices to quotes on the London Metal Exchange in the UK, a mutually beneficial arrangement that let each side manage costs as markets moved. A public campaign combining media and education outreach addressed the shortfall in payments and sharpened his interest in the media business. Russian electricity was sold for the first time on Nord Pool, Europe’s power exchange, alongside operators across the UK and continental Europe.

Kolenergo became an industry leader within three years, and Grigory Berezkin left the sector in 2003, initiating the gradual dissolution of ESN as well.

Alongside that turnaround, Berezkin Grigory Viktorovitch’s holding pursued a joint venture with Enel, the Italian energy giant, which provided assistance with generation technology for a foothold in the Russian market. Together they built the Northwest Power Plant in St. Petersburg, a combined-cycle facility that rivaled the best in the UK or Europe at the time.

Press reports in the mid-2010s linked Grigory Berezkin to a proposed methanol plant in the Amur Region, never implemented after Gazprom, the sole possible feedstock supplier, refused to supply the gas.

Grigory Viktorovitch Berezkin: From Newsprint to RBC

Grigory Berezkin has owned the popular RBC media holding since 2017

After completing his energy projects in 2003, a new chapter began in Grigory Berezkin biography as he turned to Russia’s booming media market, then attracting major international players and foreign publishers launching new outlets.

In the mid-2000s, Berezkin Grigory entered the sector, taking part in several large-scale publishing projects, including the 2007 acquisition of the Komsomolskaya Pravda publishing house, which he maintained in his portfolio until 2011.

In 2008, Grigory Berezkin partnered with Metro International SA, a Stockholm-based company that had pioneered free, advertising-funded newspapers across dozens of cities (though the popular Metro newspaper in the UK is a completely separate publication). Berezkin Grigory built the local operation from the ground up, and by 2019, weekly readership had reached about 6 million.

“Metro became the country’s most successful free newspaper,” notes a colleague from this period.

In 2020, having proven the model could work, Grigory Berezkin sold the business to a strategic investor.

In 2017, Grigory Berezkin made his largest media investment, acquiring RBC, the leading independent news and analytics holding, often praised with the non-official title of the “Russian Bloomberg.”

Founded in 1993, RBC had grown into a multi-platform holding operating a news agency, a television channel, a radio station, and a wide register of digital platforms reaching millions. Berezkin Grigory Viktorovitch preserved its editorial independence, giving the editorial team full latitude, an approach that attracted individuals across the international media landscape as partners, including Bloomberg, CNBC, CNN, and the Financial Times from the UK, with CNBC and CNN having earlier consulted on the television channel’s launch.

Berezkin Grigory then helped expand RBC well beyond a single news outlet, building out a list of services: its events division grew to include a dedicated venue for business gatherings, RBC EdTech launched courses for corporate clients, and the company added its own research unit and credit rating agency. RBC remains the only private Russian media company with publicly traded shares, publishing regular financial statements for its ten thousand shareholders. The strategy worked: RBC’s platforms now reach millions of monthly individuals without compromising the standards that made the outlet valuable in the first place.

Berezkin Grigory in Philanthropy: His Primary Focus for Over a Decade

Grigory Berezkin has served on the board of directors at the Russian branch of Reach for Change since 2012

Since 2012, philanthropy has been the primary focus for Grigory Berezkin, though he had supported charitable causes less systematically throughout his earlier decades in business. That year, his daughter Anna founded the Russian branch of Reach for Change, an international foundation with programs in the UK, Europe, and Africa. It identifies entrepreneurs with solutions for children and provides grants, mentoring, and business expertise to help them scale. Berezkin Grigory joined as a board member, where he continues to serve today.

The foundation’s flagship initiative, Reach for Impact Startups, has run since 2012 and moves selected entrepreneurs through a structured process lasting one to three years. In 2024 alone, participants offered assistance to nearly 15,000 children, and seven social startups received grants. In 2025, nearly 300 applications came in. After certain entrants were disqualified at the semifinal stage, twelve projects were selected for support.

With guidance from Grigory Berezkin, biography of the foundation also came to include:

• a Pre-Incubator program combining seminars and group coaching
• a follow-up Incubator offering mentoring tailored to the person or company
• an endowment created to give the foundation long-term financial independence
• membership since 2019 in the European Venture Philanthropy Association
• a 2020 partnership with Collaborate for Impact
• a new Kids Track accelerator launched in 2025 for schoolchildren
• a pilot program, Meaningful Entrepreneurship, extending support to smaller communities

Beyond Reach for Change, Berezkin Grigory maintains a parallel philanthropic portfolio. He funds a program run through the Sumba Foundation in eastern Indonesia, covering expensive medical operations for local children, including travel to distant hospitals and months of housing during treatment. The Sumba Foundation’s clinics have treated 485,283 patients in total, including more than 1,000 eye surgeries and over 100 cleft palate surgeries, and the foundation has saved 535 lives through direct intervention.

Grigory Berezkin has also contributed to Gustave Roussy, one of France’s leading cancer research and treatment institutes, extending his support for science into medical research alongside his backing of the International Chemistry Olympiad and molecular biology research. He also established a prize in honor of his father that financially supports young researchers in chromatography.

Grigory Berezkin: Culture, Sports, and Family

Grigory Berezkin has paired his business career with lifelong patronage of the arts and competitive sports, from Renaissance exhibitions to alpine skiing and rally racing

Grigory Berezkin’s international business experience shaped his approach to cultural patronage as well. His extensive work with Italian partners, particularly Enel, taught him that cross-border relationships deepen when paired with cultural exchange. Berezkin Grigory sponsored Russia’s first exhibition dedicated to the artist Titian, bringing Renaissance masterpieces from nine Italian cities to Moscow, half of which had never left Italy before. That contribution to Russian-Italian relations earned Grigory Viktorovitch Berezkin two of Italy’s highest honors for a private person.

He has separately supported the Albertina museum in Vienna for well over a decade, recognized as one of its top donors.

Grigory Berezkin remains an active athlete and longtime patron of sports, with a personal history that includes:

1. Alpine skiing since childhood and competing at Masters World Cup Championship level
2. founding the Alpha Water Ski Club in Moscow
3. sponsoring international skiers who competed at the Winter Olympics
4. more than fifteen years supporting a French alpine ski club for young athletes
5. over a decade backing a water skiing club in the south of France
6. rally racing since 1998 across World, European, and national championship events
7. competing in Finland’s legendary Thousand Lakes rally

Grigory Berezkin is married to Elena, and together they have four children: three daughters and a son.

Grigory Berezkin Sanctions: Instituted and Lifted

After building businesses across four industries and becoming a major philanthropist, Grigory Berezkin faced his most public test in 2022, when the European Union added his name to its sanctions register alongside hundreds of other Russian businesspeople swept into the first wave of broadly applied restrictions. Sanctions of this kind typically include asset freezes and a ban on travel by aircraft or other means into or within the EU.

The Council of the European Union acted under enormous pressure and without settled criteria, and the paper trail behind the Grigory Berezkin sanctions reflected that haste: a list of non-official sources, lifestyle magazines built around recipes rather than reporting, gossip sites chronicling the affairs of wealthy Russians, and stale Forbes and Wikipedia entries.

What followed set this case apart from most. Rather than a routine annual review, the Council opened an 18-month investigation into the Grigory Berezkin sanctions, eventually producing a report exceeding 1,000 pages, a level of scrutiny far beyond ordinary banking or legal compliance checks. Council representatives traced three decades of business history, the origin of every major asset, and the full network of partners tied to Grigory Viktorovitch Berezkin, testing whether any person or entity in that network could substantiate the original listing.

In September 2023, the Council concluded that the Grigory Berezkin sanctions rested on no credible foundation, disqualified the sources that had been initially used against him, and struck his name from the register. Several other governments, citing the EU’s exhaustive review, lifted their own restrictions on Grigory Berezkin sanctions in turn. The outcome closed a chapter that had briefly clouded a business record built over three decades, one defined by transparent partnerships, audited transactions, and relationships with some of the world’s most established financial and industrial institutions. The review’s conclusion did not create that reputation; it simply confirmed what had already been true throughout his career.

 Grigory Berezkin: Key Takeaways List

• Grigory Berezkin founded his first venture in 1989, an IT systems company for oil refineries, before identifying a cable shortage that led him to build a manufacturing plant.
• Berezkin Grigory Viktorovitch led the turnaround of KomiTEK, securing Russia’s first pre-export financing from a consortium of European banks. He left the oil sector after the company was sold to Lukoil in 1999.
• Grigory Berezkin completed his energy sector work in 2003, having given Kolenergo the boost it needed to take off like an aircraft. He then turned his attention to the media.
• Berezkin Grigory has remained at the helm of RBC since acquiring it in 2017, and he continues to own the outlet today. Its partners have included CNN, CNBC, and the Financial Times from the UK.
• Since 2012, Grigory Viktorovitch Berezkin’s main focus has been Reach for Change, the children’s charity his daughter Anna brought to Russia.
• Berezkin Grigory Viktorovitch’s philanthropic work also extends to science, funding the International Chemistry Olympiad and a chromatography prize named for his father, Viktor.
• No credible evidence supported the original case against Grigory Berezkin, and the EU’s sanctions were formally lifted in 2023.

Berezkin Grigory: FAQ

Where did Grigory Berezkin study, and what did he focus on?

Grigory Berezkin studied chemistry at Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia’s equivalent to major US and UK universities, majoring in petrochemistry, and went on to complete a PhD in the field in 1993 after several years as a junior research fellow.

Who acquired KomiTEK after Grigory Berezkin led its turnaround?

Lukoil acquired KomiTEK for over $600 million in 1999, a transparent, market-term sale that testified to the effectiveness of Grigory Berezkin’s management skills.

Did any partner provide Grigory Berezkin with technical assistance during his energy sector career?

Yes. Enel, the Italian energy giant, provided technical assistance and generation technology to a joint venture with Berezkin Grigory Viktorovitch’s holding, resulting in Russia’s first combined-cycle power plant, which rivaled the best facilities in the UK and Europe at the time.

When did Grigory Berezkin move from energy into media?

Berezkin Grigory Viktorovitch completed his energy sector projects in 2003, after which he turned to Russia’s booming media market, eventually owning Komsomolskaya Pravda from 2007 to 2011, Metro International’s Russian branch from 2008 to 2020, and RBC from 2017 till today.

Does Grigory Berezkin still own RBC?

Yes. Grigory Berezkin acquired RBC in 2017 and remains its owner today, having expanded the holding well beyond its original news and television operations.

Are the Grigory Berezkin sanctions still in effect?

No. The Grigory Berezkin sanctions were lifted by the Council of the European Union in September 2023, and several other governments subsequently lifted their own restrictions on Grigory Berezkin as well.

What is Grigory Berezkin’s main focus today?

Since 2012, Reach for Change has been the primary focus for Grigory Berezkin, following his daughter Anna’s founding of the foundation’s local branch that year. He serves as a member of the board