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42 I Eastern Europe bne November 2017
Ruben Vardanian
INTERVIEW:
The quiet thunder of Ruben Vardanian
Vardanian’s efforts to promote wealth creation have made him rich, but he is interested in promoting wealth creation for all the countries he is involved with, as Vardanian believes lifting the boat for everyone is the best way to support and promote his own business. You can only be a capitalist if you have a capitalist system to live in.
“There are a lot of problems in the world today and the only way to resolve them is through dialogue,” Vardanian told bne IntelliNews in an exclusive interview. “But once those problems are resolved the goal has to be promoting wealth creation. Prosperity brings peace and to achieve this goal we have to work on all aspects of that problem, with education being one of the most important.”
Vardanian’s career started with the founding of Russia’s first western style investment bank Troika Dialog when still in his 20s, together with two Americans Peter Derby and Bernie Sucher. Troika flourished in the 90s, and soon after the bank became successful he launched a project together with other successful entrepreneurs to work out a reform plan to transform Russia.
Vardanian sold Troika to Sberbank in January 2012 for a reported $1bn, after which it became Sberbank CIB, the investment banking arm of the state- owned retail banking giant.
The sale of Troika marked a big shift in Rus- sia’s banking scene, a downsizing of com- mercial investment banks as this role was taken over by the two state-owned giants; today Sberbank CIB and its sister bank
Ben Aris in Rhodes
Ruben Vardanian is a huge bear of a man. He is hard to interview as when he speaks it is like listen- ing to thunder. But despite his imposing physical presence he radiates a modesty that belies his status as a titan of Rus- sian banking. And the wellspring of this modesty is the philanthropic streak that has run through everything he has done in business.
The leitmotif of Vardanian’s career has been wealth creation. We met on the sidelines of the Dialogue of Civilisations annual meeting on the island of Rhodes where academics and leading politicians meet to discuss the world’s ills.
Vardanian is a member of the economic advisory board at the International Finance Corporation and on the boards of a number of companies, as well as the boards of an equal number of philan- thropic organisations. He came to Rhodes
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to speak on panels about migration, which has affected the Commonwealth of Inde- pendent States (CIS) as much as Europe.
As an ethnic Armenian – he owns Ame- riabank, the largest commercial bank in the country – it's a topic he knows well. Russia has not received many refugees from the Middle East wars, but there is
“Vardanian believes lifting the boat for everyone is the best way to support and promote his own business”
a steady stream of migrants from the former Soviet Union in search of better pay that they send home to support their families. More recently more than a mil- lion Ukrainians have fled fighting in the Donbas for Russia.
VTB Capital dominate Russia’s investment banking business. Only two small brokers, Aton and BCS, are left in the game.
The Russian banking sector is now going through more change as the Central