Biography

Thirty-five years, built in sequence

Vadim Gurinov was born in Nalchik in 1971. He has spent his working life starting businesses: trade, then manufacturing, then industry, and today financial technology and digital commerce in emerging markets.

He started in business in 1991, in export-import operations and the consumer goods trade, at the point when private enterprise became possible in Russia.

With partners he founded DealMakers and built a retail chain of denim stores carrying the Turkish brand Colin's, importing clothing into a market that had almost none of it and selling it through shops the partners opened themselves. The business was sold in 1998.

In 1996 he was one of the founders of Petrosoyuz, originally Petroimport, a grocery food producer. He became deputy chief executive in 1999 and sold his share of the business to H.J. Heinz in 2003.

Between 1999 and 2000 he founded the confectionery group Lyubimiy Kray as co-owner. Under his management it became one of the leading confectionery producers in Russia by 2002, employing 450 people. By 2001 the combined turnover of Petrosoyuz and Lyubimiy Kray had passed $250 million. He sold his stake in 2013.

The years that followed took him into heavy industry and telecommunications in Russia: tyre manufacturing with Cordiant, and the independent tower operator Service-Telecom.

He has since moved his focus to international markets.

Since 2015 he has been based in Limassol, Cyprus, from where he develops an international portfolio concentrated in financial technology and digital commerce, sectors where, as in 1991, the market infrastructure is still being built.

Fingular, the financial group launched in Singapore in 2021 of which he is a co-founder and strategic investor, is building fully digital credit and banking services for customers conventional banks have never reached, now live across Indonesia, Malaysia and India. Jiji is the online marketplace serving six African markets from its base in Nigeria. Beond is the Maldivian premium leisure carrier. Lion Soul is a regulated platform for digital assets.

Thirty-five years, built in sequence

Trade

Manufacturing

Industry and infrastructure

Today

Academic and executive