Roman Avdeev - biography

Roman Avdeev ranked 102nd in the 2011 Forbes rating "200 richest businessmen of Russia". He ranked 66th as soon as in 2017. The Moscow Credit Bank (MCB), created by Avdeev, is keeping afloat and its wealth multiplies... However, Roman does not look like a man whose thoughts are focused on moneymaking only.

Such people either do not create a family or devote it little attention – largely "financial." However, he manages not only to pay full attention to his many children, but also to engage in charity, write columns for Forbes and other publications, find time for a hobby, and read great books.

Roman Avdeev easily quotes ancient and modern philosophers in his numerous interviews (philosophy for him is more than a hobby – his acquaintance with it did not limit to books like "100 great aphorisms about everything in the world") and creates the overall impression of a very smart and harmonious personality ...

When does he find time for everything?! It’s like several people peacefully coexist in one person, and everyone is busy with their own business, together constituting Roman Avdeev as everyone sees him.

Roma Avdeev was born on July 17, 1967 in Odintsovo near Moscow – in a country where private entrepreneurship was called "blackmarketeering" and with other bad words, and was prosecuted. He studied at School 3 – according to his own admission, his was doing bad, but only until the last two years – this is when he realized that he was the one who needed it, in the first place.

He was enrolled in the Moscow Power Engineering Institute, Faculty of Thermal Power Engineering – like many young men in the USSR, he was fond of radio electronics, and the technical school seemed the best solution to him. During his study, he was called up to the military service in 1986 – he served his duty to the Motherland in the Kostroma construction battalion, where he was both a secretary of the commander and ... a cleaner.

After serving, Roman – already a family man, with a wife and a son – got back to studies on a full-time basis. However, he had to work as a watchman and as a cleaner (again) in the vocational school, night shifts: he had to feed the family.

The Law on Cooperation in the USSR was adopted on May 6, 1988; the trading activity of individuals was no more a crime, and Roman immediately set up his own small enterprise – he arranged trade in decoders for TV sets and "sinclairs" (the current owners of powerful gaming hardware do not even know what it is), established business cooperation with the Ukrainian plant "Electronmash", and imported computer equipment from abroad.

At the same time, he had ideas about banking as a separate field of business. Private business finally became a legal reality in spring 1991, and as soon as in 1994, Roman Avdeev acquired MCB – more precisely, he got a set of documents, some premises, and 14 employees.

According to Banki.ru ratings, the universal bank MCB currently ranks 9th in Russia and 8th in the region in terms of net assets, and 17th in Russia and 15th in the region in terms of net profit. Roman Avdeev is a member of the Supervisory Board of the bank and president of MCB Capital, which manages the Rossium concern.

This is quite Greek as well: to combine reading great books and reflections with sports. Roman Avdeev never aspired to go in for sports professionally – his character does not allow him to be addicted to the same thing for long.

This is why he tries to engage in everything that seems interesting. This includes cycling, jogging, and quite extreme kinds of sports: mountain skiing and climbing. He believes that sports is necessary for character building, as it provides an invaluable experience of overcoming oneself and own weaknesses and fears.