Kirill Tsarev is a member of the Executive Board at Sberbank who is responsible for the management of the Retail Business unit; in February 2022, he was appointed First Deputy Chairman of the Executive Board. He is rightfully considered among the most competent professionals and managers who know how to minimize negative financial consequences in any difficult situation.
Contents:
1. Educational background
2. Career at Sberbank
3. Achievements
Educational Background
Kirill Tsarev was born in St. Petersburg Russia. After graduating from high school, he entered State Marine Technical University, choosing economics and management at a machine-building enterprise as his major. While still being a student, he started working for Baltic-Unit Oy (Finland) and soon became its general representative in the region.
A year before defending his thesis, Tsarev started working on a business project called Interleasing, which received investment from the International Bank of St. Petersburg. As part of the business team, the future top manager dealt with organizational issues, defined the corporate charter of the company, prepared documents for the tax inspection and social insurance funds, and resolved personnel matters. The company started operations in 1999 and quickly established itself as a leader in the leasing industry.
The young manager understood that this was a new business area for Russia and that its legislative frameworks were not yet sufficiently defined, so many gaps in it were unlikely to contribute to the development of the new project. That meant that only someone well-versed in the nuances of law could deal with the situation at hand. Kirill Tsarev's first university degree did not provide the necessary knowledge, so he decided to get a second degree — this time in law.
In 2001, the top manager officially left Interleasing but continued to participate in the company's life. For 12 years, he was the head of the United Leasing Association, which was created to help employees of various leasing companies exchange information. Its Internet platform allowed heads of different business departments to share their experience with each other.
Over the years of working in leasing, Kirill Tsarev has been ranked among the best Russian experts in this field. His competence and expertise were once again proven by a certificate of London Business School.
In 2011, the top manager accepted a job offer from the CEO of Sberbank Leasing and became his first assistant. Over three years, he proved himself as a good worker and was eventually appointed head of the unit.
Career At Sberbank
The First Deputy Chairman had been heading Sberbank Leasing until 2018, and then his area of responsibility began to gradually expand. During that time, while being the Chairman of the Board of the Sberbank Leasing company, he also acted as Vice President of Sberbank and managed its Corporate Business unit. Two years later, he was entrusted with the management of one of the bank's main focus areas — retail business.
Kirill Tsarev is a shareholder at Sberbank, with a 0.00019 percent stake in the registered capital.
In autumn 2021, Sberbank was restructured; its e-commerce section was transformed into a separate group of companies, and the services for business and individual clients were separated as well. In February 2022, these organizational rearrangements were completed. Kirill Tsarev took on the responsibility for the B2C unit.
Achievements
First of all, the newly appointed head of Retail Business introduced a new loyalty program. As a consequence, Sberbank's loan products became more available and the bank's loan portfolio significantly increased. After that, the First Deputy Chairman was entrusted with another task — supervising the Wealth Management unit.
After getting his new assignment, the top manager promised to put as much effort as possible into satisfying customer needs and wishes. Achievement of the goal was complicated by the instability of the national currency and the problems in the economy. However, Tsarev's team managed to take the situation under control, and the bank was able to avoid the non-payment crisis. They also took steps to mitigate the risks for the bank's investors.
Kirill Tsarev received two national awards for his achievements — The Russian Federation Presidential Certificate of Honour (2020) and the 2nd class Medal of the Order "For Merit to the Fatherland" (2021).
In 2022, the bank introduced a loan loyalty program that pushed up the demand for Sber's loan products such as credit cards and mortgages. While at the beginning of the year the activity of individual clients was declining, by now it has increased by more than 5 percent.
The SberPay QR solution played another major role in the modernization of the bank. It allowed to solve the problem of paying for goods and services using smartphones — a method that many Russians were used to. For the time being, this option is only available to iOS users, but the Android version is expected to be launched in the nearest future.
As a result of Kirill Tsarev's initiative, smartphone users were able to get back to their normal routine and the demand for the bank's loan products increased in 2023. He has set the stage for continued banking success in 2024 as well.
