List of top 50 most influential business figures gets new leader

Forbes Kazakhstan’s list of the country’s most influential businesspeople has a new leader.

For the first time since the magazine started compiling the annual rating 12 years ago, it is not topped by someone closely linked to the former President Nursultan Nazarbayev.

Until this year, the magazine named either Timur Kulibayev, ex-president Nazarbayev’s son-in-law, or Bulat Utemuratov, a former aide to Nazarbayev, as business figures with the biggest clout in the country.

The leader of Forbes Kazakhstan’s 2023 list of top 50 most influential businessmen, which was published earlier this week, is Vyacheslav Kim, a major shareholder in Kaspi.kz – the country’s pioneering financial institution in internet and mobile banking. In 2011 Kim was in the 15th place.

Utemuratov and Kulibayev, however, have not dropped much, taking, respectively, the second and third positions.

This year’s list includes six ‘newcomers’ – Kanat Kopbayev, chairman of YPO Kazakhstan; Eldar Sarsenov, a co-owner of Nurbank; Aydarbek Khodjanazarov, a co-owner of Alto Logistics, and also an MP and leader of the Respublica party; Raushan Sagdiyeva, described by Forbes.kz as “the Kulibayev couple’s longtime business partner”; Rustam Karagoyshin, who owns Kazakh Agro Production and heads the Kazakhstan Grain Consortium; and Almas Chukin, the managing partner of the Visor investment company.

In July, President Tokayev signed a new law on recovering illegally acquired assets. It targets specifically the assets belonging to “the influential oligopoly groups closely connected to the state” – a problem that Tokayev pledged to fight after taking over from his predecessor Nazarbayev.

On 5 October, President Tokayev decreed creation of a Committee for Recovering Assets within the General Prosecutor’s Office.

Frobes Kazakhstan’s top 50 of most influential business figures is based on their public and charity activities, estimated net worth, number of employees and tax returns for 2022.

The magazine notes that the rating is “a strictly subjective piece of journalism”.

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