Supervisory Board

Neil Janin, a Canadian national, is a “just retired” Director of McKinsey & Company in its Paris office, where he joined the Firm in 1982. Today, he divides his time between, counseling CEOs of both for-profit and non-profit organizations and their teams; teaching and doing research on leadership development at INSEAD as executive in residence, and HEC in Paris, and consulting to McKinsey & Co. He started and led the Financial Institutions practice in France. Over his 27 year long career at McKinsey, he conducted engagements in the retail, asset management, and corporate banking areas. His work spanned the functions of strategy, organization and operations. He has practiced in Europe, Asia and North America. Neil Janin was also one of the thought leaders of McKinsey’s organization practice and has conducted engagements in every area of organizational practice: design, leadership, governance, performance enhancement, culture change and transformation. Specifically, he contributed to the Post Management Integration framework used by the Firm in its merger work worldwide, and led a recent research effort on top team effectiveness and strategy visioning. In 2009, as co-chairman of the commission of the French Institute of Directors (IFA), Neil Janin authored a position paper on the responsibilities of the board of directors with regards to the design and implementation of a company’s strategy. Before joining McKinsey, Neil worked for the Chase Manhattan Bank (now JP Morgan Chase) in New York and Paris, and Procter & Gamble in Toronto. Neil holds an MBA from York University, Toronto and a joint honors degree in Economics and Accounting from McGill University, Montreal.

In 2007 Mr. Morrison retired after a 28 year career as a business and financial lawyer to devote his efforts to nature conservation. In 2008 he became the founding Executive Director of the Caucasus Nature Fund (CNF), a newly created NGO that partners with the governments of Georgia and Armenia to support nature protection in the richly bio-diverse Caucasus. The initial sponsors of the CNF include the German government, WWF and Conservation International. Mr. Morrison spent his legal career at the prestigious international law firm Sullivan & Cromwell LLP, where he was a managing partner of the firm’s European offices. His law practice was focussed on high-level advice to public companies in a transactional context, from mergers and acquisitions to capital raisings. In hundreds of transactions over the years, a wide variety of investment banks and businesses counted on him as their key advisor. Headline deals included major European privatizations—among them Deutsche Telekom, Renault, Swisscom, Deutsche Post, and Austrian Post. Key banking clients included Banco Espirito Santo in Portugal and Germany’s development bank KfW (Mr. Morrison served on the board of directors of KfW’s finance subsidiary for 20 years). He was a driving force behind Sullivan & Cromwell’s expansion into French and German law and the organic, 10-fold growth of its continental European offices during his tenure. Mr. Morrison is the author of several publications on securities law related topics, and has the rare distinction of having been recognized as a leading lawyer in two jurisdictions—Germany and France.

A citizen of the U.S., David graduated from Yale College in 1974, attended UCLA law school and was a Fulbright scholar the University of Frankfurt. He has spent most of his adult life in Europe, speaks French and German and currently lives in Paris.

Ian Hague, Mr. Hague has been a member of the Supervisory Board since December 2004. Mr. Hague is the Managing Partner of Firebird Management LLC. Mr. Hague holds a BA degree from Wesleyan University (1983) and an MA degree from Monterey Institute of International Studies. He has also done graduate work at Columbia University’s Harriman Institute. Prior to co-founding Firebird, Mr. Hague worked for the United Nations Secretariat.

Kaha Kiknavelidze, Mr. Kiknavelidze is the managing partner of Rioni Capital, the FSA-regulated investment advisor, which he founded in 2007. He oversees the fund dedicated to equity investments in the emerging markets. Prior to founding Rioni Capital, had 10-year experience in the equity markets. During 2005-07 he, as Executive Director, supervised the Russian oil and gas research team with UBS, consistently recognized as one of the leaders on the market. Prior to joining UBS, he spent eight years at Troika Dialog, initially covering metals and mining and utilities sectors and later, as deputy head of research and associate partner, leading oil and gas team. Mr. Kiknavelidze started his career as Financial Manager in Bank of Georgia in 1994. Mr. Kiknavelidze holds an MBA degree from Emory University in the USA and a BA in Economics with honors from the Georgian Agrarian University in Tbilisi, Georgia.

Hanna Loikkanen Finnish national, Chief Representative East Capital, Moscow Private Equity, joined East Capital in November 2007 and has over 15 years of experience in working with financial institutions in Russia and Eastern Europe. Prior to joining East Capital Ms. Loikkanen served as the Country Manager and CEO for FIM Group in Russia, she was responsible for setting up and running the Group’s brokerage and corporate finance operations in Russia. Before joining FIM Group she worked for Nordea Finance for several years in various management positions in Poland, Baltic States and Finland. Prior to Nordea, Ms. Loikkanen worked for Merita Bank in St. Petersburg as well as SEB in Moscow. Ms. Loikkanen has a Masters degree in Economics and Business Administration from the Helsinki School of Economics.

Allan J. Hirst. Mr. Hirst was employed with Citibank N.A. for nearly 25 years. Prior to his retirement from Citigroup in February 2005, he led the bank's expansion into Central and Eastern Europe, Russia and Central Asia. From 1999-2004, Mr. Hirst served as President of ZAO Citibank Russia as well as Managing Director with an oversight over the bank's operations in the CIS. Prior to moving to Russia, Mr. Hirst worked in various senior capacities at Citigroup, including as Division Executive with the managerial oversight over corporate and investment banking business in the Middle East and Indian Sub-continent and as Division Executive responsible for establishing the bank's network in Central and Eastern Europe. Mr. Hirst additionally serves as Non-Executive Director and Member of Executive Committee of the Board of the Financial Services Volunteer Corps, Non-Executive Director of Phico Theurapeutics and Non-Executive Director of RosBank. Mr. Hirst also serves as Chairman of the Audit Committee, a Member of the Compensation Committee and Member of the Strategy Committee of RosBank. Mr. Hirst received an MBA from University of Texas.

Al Breach is Chairman of TheBrowser.com (a web-based filter of choice current affairs writing that he co-founded in 2008), on the board of Vostok Nafta (since 2007) and a Swiss-based investor. Until October 2007 he was Head of Research, Strategist and Economist for UBS Russia and Managing Director. He joined what was then Brunswick UBS in January 2003 as chief economist. He and the team he led won II and Extel surveys of the best Russia strategist / economist / team on repeated occasions. Prior to Brunswick UBS, Al was Russia & FSU economist at Goldman Sachs from late 1998 to 2002; for much of the period the one Goldman professional based in Moscow. Before Goldman Sachs, from July 1996, he wrote the journal Russian Economic Trends at RECEP, a Russian government affiliated, EU-funded, LSE / SITE run economics journal based in Moscow.  Along with Moscow and Switzerland, Al, a Londoner, has lived in Beijing, Tokyo, New York and Zimbabwe. He graduated from Edinburgh University in Mathematics with Philosophy.