Herman Gref

German Gref was born in Panfilov, Pavlodar Region, Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic (now Kazakhstan) into a family of ethnic German deportees who were exiled there in 1941. Later Gref was involved in the return of exiled Germans to Russia - with his assistance an entire German village called Strelna was built near St. Petersburg.

There are two versions of what Gref did after graduation. According to one of them, Gref entered the faculty of international economic relations at MGIMO of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the USSR, but after the first year he was expelled from the university. According to the other version, after school Gref and his first wife, Elena Velikanova, entered Omsk State University, but failed the exams.

From 1981 to 1982, he worked as a legal advisor for the Irtysh District Department of the Pavlodar Region.

From 1982 to 1984, Gref served in the Soviet Army.

After fulfilling two years of military service, he studied law at Omsk State University in Siberia from 1985 to 1990.

After that he enrolled in the post-graduate program at the Law Department of St. Petersburg State University. He graduated in 1993 under the guidance of Anatoly Sobchak. However, he did not defend his dissertation until 2011. From 1992 to 1998 Gref worked on several positions at the Saint Petersburg City Administration, notably a term as vice-governor from 1997 to 1998. He became a friend and ally of Vladimir Putin during this period; he also made acquaintance with Alexei Kudrin, Dmitry Kozak, and Dmitry Medvedev.

Deputy Minister of State Property (1998-2000)

In August 1998, Gref was appointed First Deputy Minister of State Property of the Russian Federation, and was a member of its board until 2000. He was also appointed to the board of the Federal Commission for the Securities Market of the Russian Federation and the board of state-owned Svyazinvest and Gazprom in 1999.

Minister of Economic Development (2000-2007)

Gref was first appointed as Minister of the newly formed Ministry of Economic Development and Trade on May 18, 2000 and was reappointed to the position in the succeeding Cabinet in 2004.

Gref was a major advocate of Russia's joining the World Trade Organization. He is also responsible for 2004 creation of the Stabilization Fund of the Russian Federation.

Gref was considered as one of the liberal reformers in Vladimir Putin's administration of the early and mid-2000s, besides Alexei Kudrin. Gref has repeatedly spoken out against the monopolization of the oil and gas sector of the economy.

Gref resigned in a furore as minister in September 2007 along with Mikhail Fradkov's Second Cabinet.

Gref married the designer Yana Golovina on May 1, 2004 in the throne room of Peterhof Palace. His wife has a teenage son from a prior relationship, just as Gref has a son, Oleg, from his marriage with Yelena, who refused to move to Moscow when Gref was called into the government in 1998. Since 2006 the couple has a daughter. Oleg studied jurisprudence in St. Petersburg until 2004 and moved to Germany for further education. Gref speaks German and is an admirer of Goethe and German Expressionism.

After the Russian annexation of Crimea and a raised risk of being sanctioned, Gref used the Singapore firm Asiaciti Trust to restructure a $75 million family trust through a network of offshore companies in 2015. He gave more than $50 million held in the trust to a 24-year old nephew who lived outside of Russia, but remained in control of the assets through the offshore companies.

In a November 2016 interview with TASS, Gref revealed that he had done some speculating with Bitcoin.