Alexey Miller

Miller was born in Leningrad to an assimilated Russo-German family. He studied at the Leningrad Institute of Finance and Economics from which he received a PhD in economics.

Miller’s first role was as an engineer-economist in the general planning division of the Leningrad research institute of civil construction ‘LenNIIProekt’.

In 1990, he briefly became a junior researcher at the Leningrad Finance and Economics Institute and also became section head for the Economic Reform Committee at the Executive Committee of the Leningrad City Council.

From 1991 to 1996, Miller served with the Committee for External Relations of the Saint Petersburg Mayor's Office under Vladimir Putin. During this time, he was head of the markets monitoring division at the Foreign Economic Relations Directorate and was also deputy chairman of the External Relations Committee.

From 1996 to 1999, he was Director for Development and Investments of the Port of Saint Petersburg. From 1999 to 2000, he served as Director General of the Baltic Pipeline System.

In 2000, he was appointed Deputy Minister of Energy of the Russian Federation, and since 2001 he has served as Chairman of the Management Committee of Gazprom. Since 2002, he has also been deputy chairman of Gazprom’s board of directors. Putin secured Miller’s appointment as CEO so that his former colleague could put an end to fears that some of Gazprom’s executives had harmful third-party relationships. It was also part of the move to centralize state-owned and private energy companies. This was a shift towards building large state companies as they are seen as the backbone of Russian economy.