Vagit Alekperov — businessman with roots in the USSR
Vagit Alekperov is an Azerbaijani-Russian billionaire born in Baku who founded LUKOIL — Russia's largest privately-owned oil company and one of the world's biggest energy producers. Rising through the Soviet oil industry from Baku to Moscow, he built LUKOIL into a global energy giant with operations in over 30 countries.
Tracing the roots — Baku (Azerbaijan)
Born in Baku (Azerbaijani SSR) in 1950 to an Azerbaijani oil worker father, Alekperov rose through the Soviet oil industry — working in Baku, Western Siberia, and Moscow — before founding LUKOIL in 1991. His Azerbaijani origins and his Russian business career perfectly embody the pan-Soviet Russian-speaking business world this expanded section charts.
Baku (Azerbaijan). At the time, this region was one of the fifteen republics of the Soviet Union.