I was born in Moscow on October 20, 1969. I studied at an ordinary school in the southwestern part of Moscow. Though it wasn’t that ordinary. We had excellent teachers, and a very great form tutor. I think it was they who made our class such a friendly place, back then and to this day. It is over 30 years since we finished school, and we still meet and keep up friendly contacts with our classmates. I was fond of electronics, and spent much of my time in the Electronics Club. Though most of all, I love cars. I got my first driver’s licence when I was 14 (back then there was a special licence for youth), I participated in races, and I liked fixing cars for everyone in my neighbourhood.

After I finished school in 1986, I became a full-time student at the Automotive Faculty of the Moscow Automobile University. I decided I wanted to be independent, and from that moment, I earned my own way in life, and never again asked my parents for any money. I studied during the day and worked at night as a cleaner, glass washer, driver, seller at the Kursk Railway Station, driving school instructor and a car parts engineer during my last years at the university.

During those years, many were drafted into the army, even those who attended universities with a military-training department. I served in armor corps, and this was a great life experience for me.

After I finished my military service, I returned to the university. These were hard times in our country (early 1990th). But a lot of new opportunities appeared. I decided to combine my love of cars and making money, so I opened a little car service garage with a friend.

My first business experience failed because of the multitude of problems that were common during the "wild 90s", and so two years later we closed down our garage.

While in my last year at the institute, I launched a new company to help customers select paint for their cars. My startup capital was exactly 100 USD. A few months later, my best friend and present business partner Alexander Gorelov joined me. I’m sure that without his efforts, we would not have succeeded. During the first years when we were building our company, we had to be everything — managers, cargo handlers, drivers, sellers, colorists — the usual story of any startup company.

Step by step, our company started growing and developing, we opened several branches, and then we obtained exclusive representative rights for Standox Paints, and we also became a key supplier to almost all car dealers. We design body repair stations, supply equipment, tools and parts, train painters and masters of body shops. For many years our company has been known by the brand name Auto repair systems. In 2010, we have built our own paint factory in Tver, from the scratch. It is equipped with the latest world technologies.

After about 7 years after I had started my business, I realized that I lacked knowledge in financial accounting, strategy, and marketing, so I decided to continue my education. The years 2001 to 2003 were some of the hardest for me, and I received by MBA from Kingston University. I really worked hard — too much new knowledge,
methodologies, various tasks — and everything was in foreign language. But those years were really interesting, and I’m grateful to all my teachers and fellow classmates.

Around 2008, I became interested in the venture capital industry, so a started working as an angel investor and funded more than 10 startup companies, and some of them became really successful. In 2010, Vladimir Mau, Rector of the Academy of the National Economy, proposed that I created a business incubator at the Academy. We gathered an excellent team with Renat Garipov, Pyotr Tatishchev, Mikhail Korneev and others. In a year, our InCube topped the Forbes List of Strongest Business Incubators in Russia.

In 2011, I experienced a sharp turn in my career, as I was unexpectedly invited to join the Government of Moscow, where I was first appointed to head the Department for Small and Medium Enterprises, and later became a Minister, head of the Department of Science and Industrial Policy.

This was a difficult, but interesting and useful experience for me. We implemented many projects in Moscow, but there also remained many planned, but due to many reasons, not realized ones. In general, I was surprised that a civil servant’s job is not that easy, while also learnt that there are many great specialists and nice people in the public service. Well, here, like everywhere, there are all kinds of people.

In autumn 2014, the Moscow Mayor Sobyanin accepted my resignation, so I had a few months to take a rest. I trained for and ran in the Baikal Ice Marathon. In March 2016, I was appointed to head the Industrial Development Fund, a new and very interesting development institution, and I will talk about it in the pages of this site
as well.

Besides this, I'm the head of the Chair of Entrepreneurial Leadership at Skolkovo Moscow School of Management. I really do want to see more entrepreneurs in my country, and I'll talk about what I do to support this goal.

I have many hobbies, including scuba diving (since 1995), skiing, motorcycling (in 2008 I won Russian motorcycle endurance championship), photography (I took courses at the Academy of Photography) and many others, which I will try to talk about on the pages of my website.

Recently, I became interested in running and the triathlon. I have run several marathons, including one of the most extreme in the world, on the ice of Lake Baikal. In April 2016, in Africa, I completed the "iron" distance triathlon (3.8 km of open water swimming, 180 km of bike racing, 42.2 km of running) and received the Iron Man title. In October 2016, I once again heard the words: "Alexey, you are an Iron Man" at the finish line in Spain.

I’m married and have three daughters, whom I love very much.