Mikhail Fridman

Mikhail Fridman is an international businessman and co-founder of LetterOne, the international investment business, headquartered in Luxembourg, with offices in London. L1 has over £25bn of capital deployed in long term investments in sectors of vital future importance: technology, energy, health and retail. The business is also supporting ground-breaking work on future measures of GDP and is a leading supporter of entrepreneurship. Mikhail was born in 1964 into a Jewish family in Lvov, Ukraine. In 1980, he graduated from school in Lvov, where he won Olympiads in physics and mathematics. After graduating from university with a first class degree, he started work as an entrepreneur. Together with several partners he has both built and invested in hugely successful international businesses. These include: the X5 Retail Group, Dia and Holland & Barrett, with over 25,000 stores between them; Wintershall Dea, UPP and Plastic Energy, who are breaking new ground in energy transition and infrastructure; VEON and Turkcell in telecoms; and K2 Health Ventures, providing life sciences companies at the venture and growth stages with innovative financing solutions. Mikhail is the founder of the international jazz festival in Lvov, which is now one of Europe’s top 10 jazz festivals. He is an active supporter of Jewish initiatives worldwide, including co-founding the Genesis Prize, which is awarded annually in Jerusalem and has been dubbed the Jewish Nobel by Time magazine. He also co-founded the Genesis Philanthropy Group, which develops and enhances a sense of Jewish identity among Russian-speaking Jews worldwide.