Yelena Baturina — businesswoman with roots in the USSR
Yelena Baturina is the only woman ever to have become a self-made billionaire in Russia. She founded Inteco — a major construction and real estate company — and was married to Yuri Luzhkov, the long-serving Mayor of Moscow. Following his dismissal in 2010 she relocated permanently to London and later Vienna, building an international hospitality business.
Tracing the roots — Moscow (Russia)
Born in Moscow in 1963 to a working-class factory family, Baturina's rise from injection-moulding cooperative to Russia's largest female fortune is one of the most extraordinary business stories of the post-Soviet era. Her permanent exile after Luzhkov's fall, and her subsequent Austrian base, place her firmly in the diaspora of Russian business figures who built their lives in the West.
Moscow (Russia). At the time, this region was one of the fifteen republics of the Soviet Union.
A career defined by ambition
"In Russia, being a woman in business means you have to be twice as good."