Maxim Barskiy: biography of a top manager and entrepreneur

Created by David Thompson May 30 2023, 13:44 PM EDT

With over 20 years of experience in finance and investment banking across industries, as well as leadership positions in global companies like TNK-BP and Sibanthracite, in his professional background, Maxim Barskiy invests in high-tech startups in the global IT market.

Barskiy Maxim's Early Years and Education

Maxim Barskiy spent his childhood in Zhytomyr, Ukraine. After graduating from school, his family moved to Leningrad to study at the much finer educational institutions there.

Maxim Barskiy worked very hard to enter Leningrad State University. After his admission to the University, he became one of its academic leaders. Maxim Gennadyevich Barskiy became an exchange student, visiting Norway and the USA, where is studied at the Haas School of Business at the University of California in Berkeley. This school's teaching staff are iconic figures at the forefront of business research.

Maxim Barskiy: Early Career

In 1998, Maxim Barskiy joined Troika Dialog, considered one of the leaders in the investment segment of the financial market. The company had become a tool for attracting foreign investment in the local economy. Foreign specialists who came to work in it brought world standard best practices. The period of work at Troika Dialog opened up great opportunities for Maxim Barskiy for personal development and improving his professional skills.

Barskiy Maksim Gennadyevich notes the sale of a stake in Vimpelcom (25% + 1 share) to the Scandinavian telecommunications company Telenor, one of the leading international investors in the mobile communications sector.

With the participation of Maxim Barskiy, the largest transaction in those years on the local consumer market was closed. It concerned the sale of the Bochkarev brewery to the Dutch beer giant Heineken for $400 million.

Maxim Barskiy also helped raise capital for the record label Soyuz and ABBYY, a global IT and linguistics solutions provider.

Beginning of the 2000s

In 2000, Maxim Gennadievich Barskiy got involved with Cityline and took up the company's development. Under his direction, Cityline conducted a major regional expansion. To do this, Mr. Barskiy and his partners bought shares in the business - making it possible to attract the necessary inflow of financial resources.

Under his leadership, the company's value reached $30 million, the 100,000 subscribers threshold was exceeded, and the regional network reached a new level of development, acquiring leased lines in many locations around Russia. This attracted the attention of a much larger telecom, which needed the leased lines to develop its own network and subscriber base. Cityline became a must-buy and a great value simultaneously. In the spring of 2001, Golden Telecom made and closed a deal to acquire Cityline.

In 2001-2003, Barskiy Maxim Gennadievich was a manager for a large investment fund. One of the most notable deals on the market was the fund's purchase of Borjomi, a trendy mineral water producer. There were also further investments in oil production and real estate.

Experience of Barskiy Maxim in the Oil Production Sector

Maxim Barskiy joined Alltech Investments. In 2004, Alltech acquired 20% of a company called Vostok Oil. Maxim Barskiy joined Vostok's Board of Directors and was approved as CEO. Maxim Barskiy began to reform the company's business processes.

One of the most critical tasks Maxim Barskiy faced was reforming the Board of Directors. Barskiy removed the sitting chairman and one other member because these two were foreigners who needed help understanding Russian business and, therefore, could not represent the interests of Vostok Oil's investors.

At the start of Barskiy's tenure, Vostok Oil's single asset was an oilfield in Western Siberia. Under Maxim Barskiy's management, new deposits were acquired in other regions. This helped prompt a corporate name change to West Siberian Resources (WSR). Production volumes increased enormously: from 50,000 tons in 2004 to 3.5 million tons in 2008, a seventy-fold increase. At the same time, the unit's market value was multiplied by an astounding factor of seventy-five, going from $60 million to $4.5 billion. WSR traded on the Stockholm stock exchange.

In the second half of the 2000s, Repsol, a Spanish petrochemical concern, acquired a ten-percent stake in WSR. Maxim Barskiy helped draw Repsol's attention to his company. In 2008, WSR merged with Alliance, referred to now as Alliance Oil. Following the merger, at the end of the summer of 2008, Barskiy Maxim Gennadievich sold his shares and left WSR.

In May 2009, he joined TNK-BP. He was invited as a candidate for an upper management position in the holding. At that time, production amounted to about 675,000 barrels per day in the oil refining and marketing sector.

For about six months, Maxim Barskiy worked as a vice president, then he did an internship at the BP headquarters, learning directly from BP's CEO Tony Hayward. After this, he was assigned the post of Co-CEO - a position created specifically to fit his role in the company. In this role, he participated in necessary negotiations and visited production facilities in different nations. He also learned from the British Petroleum side about ecologically-conscious processes, utilizing them in the TNK side of the massive company.

The manager significantly increased management efficiency by making revisions to various business processes. Also, under the leadership of Maksim Gennadievich Barskiy, drilling assets were acquired in the Asia-Pacific Region and South America, which made it possible to increase oil production from international divisions by up to ten percent. At the same time, the company's market value tripled, soaring from $20 billion to $60 billion.

Maxim Barskiy left the management team of TNK-BP in November 2011.

Between 2012 and 2018, he led the developing British energy company Matra Petroleum as its CEO. Under him, Matra's local assets were sold, and oil and gas-producing assets were bought in Texas, one of the central oil-bearing regions in the United States.

In 2014, OPEC's decision to keep oil extraction quotas high during a petrochemicals price spike broke the spike and caused a collapse in oil prices. This severely impacted many smaller oil producers, and it crippled Matra Oil's financial situation. Maxim Gennadievich Barskiy made many efforts to save Matra from collapse, but it could not emerge from the crisis. In 2018, Matra sold off its assets to pay creditors, and along with them, Maxim Barskiy ceded his shares in the company as well.

In 2016, he joined the Board of Directors and the management of the German delivery company Delivery Hero. He oversaw the preparations for Delivery Hero's IPO in Frankfurt. Barskiy Maxim Gennadievich doubled the enterprise's capitalization in a year, and the IPO was highly successful.

Maxim Barskiy and Sibanthracite: A Black Diamond in the Rough

Maxim Barskiy joined Sibanthracite in 2018. Dmitry Bosov, Barskiy's partner in other projects, invited him to lead one of the key players in the coal mining sector. They had a twenty-year history of business cooperation - together, they developed projects in various fields, including telecom and the oil and gas industries.

"A powerful and non-standard project." This is how Maxim Barskiy described Sibanthracite in a conversation with journalists, where he held the chair of General Director. He did not make this comment idly, for when Barskiy Maxim came on board, the company was a loosely structured, uncoordinated mess. It had three assets in two different regions, but these facilities were loosely managed and uncoordinated.

Maxim Barskiy went to work and fixed this idiorhythmic operation first. Once all three assets were brought under unified management, the company immediately began improving its output and performance.

As he personally noted later, under Maxim Barskiy Sibanthracite became a world-class company. It reached No. 1 in the international anthracite market. This type of coal it produces is most often used in steel production. It is the cleanest grade of coal, smokeless when burned, and hence considered environmentally friendly.

In the first year of operation of Maxim Barskiy Sibanthracite, the volume of coal production reached 23.7 million tons. At the beginning of 2020, anthracite reserves were estimated at 307.5 million tons.

In the same year, Maxim Barskiy Sibanthracite was recognized as the best supplier of coal products to China.

Maxim Barskiy raised Sibanthracite to an entirely new level and established high-quality business management practices.

Maxim Barskiy, Sibanthracite: A Continuing Success Story

In 2021, shipments to the Chinese market grew by 18%. Deliveries to India and South Korea increased by 51% and 38%, respectively.

Today, the existing and prospective reserves of Maxim Barskiy Sibanthracite can meet all the needs of both domestic and foreign markets. Even so, the company plans to increase production to meet rapidly growing demand in international markets. The company's production sites are gradually switching to high-capacity mining and transport equipment to increase production.

By diversifying its product line, Maxim Barskiy Sibanthracite now considers the market's needs and specific consumers. Modern technologies and IT solutions help improve internal and production processes at all stages.

Maxim Barskiy, Sibanthracite: Exit

In 2020, Sibanthracite's principal owner Dmitry Bosov tragically died. Maxim Barskiy retained his seat on the Board of Directors.

Maxim Gennadievich Barskiy formed Siban Holding, a new business unit, to execute a leveraged buyout of Sibanthracite in 2021.

Maxim Gennadyevich Barskiy became the general director of Siban Holding.

In the middle of summer 2022, the aforementioned A-Property consolidated 100% of the coal business. Maxim Barskiy Sibanthracite continued operation as part of that consolidated enterprise. Due to the carefully managed buyout, the company suffered no interruption in its operations and no delay or cancellation of any of its contracts in this period.

Following the buyout, no cardinal changes were made in Sibanthracite. The new owner maintained its team of highly qualified specialists, which over the past years, had the ensured the company's sustainable development and high efficiency.

Sibanthracite is a diamond in A-Property's crown, and A-Property is now the new industry giant with virtually unlimited access to financial support from the state. In addition, it remains autonomous and continues to function independently of the state.

Barskiy Maxim Gennadievich: After the Coal Industry

Upon leaving Sibanthracite, Maxim Barskiy decided to return to investment activities. This time, the businessman headed in a promising new direction - he invests in interesting consumer startups from the world of high technology. In particular, Barskiy Maxim supports interesting and potentially profitable international IT and artificial intelligence projects.

Maxim Gennadievich Barskiy: Interesting Facts

Barskiy Maxim loves sports. He was engaged in team sports as a kid as well as martial arts.

In his youth, he created his own rock band. He was a fan of the work of the poet-musician Boris Grebenshchikov and the bands 'Alisa' and 'Kino.'

Barskiy Maxim graduated from school with honors.

As he grew older, he began to study yoga, meditation, and qigong - an unconventional method of restoring the body with the help of special exercises, gymnastics, and breathing practices.

Barskiy Maxim Gennadievich reads books in his free time, the love his father instilled in him. Maxim Barskiy's favorite business book is Chip War by Chris Miller. Among industry literature, one of his favorite titles is The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power by Daniel Yergin.

Barskiy Maxim is a real movie buff. An indelible impression on him was made by the films Once Upon a Time in America, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, as well as the films of English film director Alan Parker.

Career principles

Barskiy Maxim strongly believes that if the market valuation of an asset is much higher than its actual value, it should be sold for profit, and one should find something new and undervalued.

Barskiy Maxim Gennadievich believes that a professional financier can create success in a variety of areas; the main thing is to see the opportunities for development and improvement of financial performance.