Rappoport Andrey Natanovich: A Career Built on Strategy, Scale, and Impact

Biography

Andrey Rappoport is an international investor with years of management experience in global markets. He has lived in Switzerland since 2015, focusing on investments in U.S. and European companies. He has worked with private PE and venture capital funds for over 10 years, concentrating on FinTech, telecommunications, and real estate development. He currently holds stakes in more than 100 such funds. Alongside his investment activities, he is active in philanthropy through the FAIR charitable foundation.

Table of Contents:

• Rappoport Andrey: Early Years and Education
• Early Career
• Andrey Natanovich Rappoport: Work in the Energy Sector
• Transition Period: From Executive to Investor
• Rappoport Andrey Natanovich: International Investment Activities
• Philanthropic Activities
• Family

Rappoport Andrey: Early Years and Education

Andrey Natanovich Rappoport was born on June 22, 1963, in Nova Kakhovka, Kherson Oblast, Ukrainian SSR. As a child, he moved with his family to Severodonetsk in the Luhansk Oblast.

In 1989, he graduated from the economics faculty of Donetsk State University with a degree in national economic planning. During his studies, he participated in an exchange program and completed an internship at Santa Clara University—located in the heart of the Silicon Valley tech industry.

In 1997, Rappoport earned his PhD from the Institute of Sociology at the Russian Academy of Sciences. His hands-on experience from working during the era of economic transformation shaped his research focus: the formation, development, and operations of management structures in commercial enterprises.

Early Career

Andrey Rappoport built his initial wealth in Russia during the 1990s, a period of rapid economic transition in Russia. He rose from consultant at a family firm to a founder of one of the country's largest private banks and top executive of an industrial holding company.

His journey began at the family business EKOU-Consult, which Andrey Rappoport joined immediately after graduating from university in 1989. The firm, founded by his uncle—a recognized expert in management consulting—helped Soviet enterprises adapt to the emerging market economy. Two years there gave him valuable experience in business restructuring and prepared him to strike out on his own.

In early 1991, he opened his own brokerage firm, Conso & K, in Donetsk. But the young entrepreneur had broader ambitions and began looking for opportunities to build a major financial institution.

That opportunity arose at the end of 1991, when Rappoport received an invitation to Moscow to lead the newly forming Alfa-Bank as chairman of the management board (CEO). He faced an unprecedented challenge: building a full-service universal commercial bank from scratch. By 1996, Alfa-Bank was a well-established name in the Russian financial market with a solid client base.

Andrey Rappoport pursued a conservative growth strategy, prioritizing the quality of banking products over aggressive regional expansion. The approach paid off: Alfa-Bank withstood the major financial crisis of 1998 that brought down many other financial institutions. Today, the institution is the largest private bank in Russia. 

By 1997, he had sold his 15% stake in the bank and left the company.

The crisis management experience he'd gained in banking opened new doors. From 1997 to 1998, he served as first vice president of YUKOS-Rosprom—a company that managed equity stakes in industrial enterprises. Leading the financial and economic divisions, he built a management team and consolidated the structure within a year.

This period gave way to a new phase involving larger-scale managerial challenges. Continuing to develop himself as an executive, from the mid-1990s onward, after obtaining an investment portfolio, he began investing in foreign securities through Swiss banks—laying the groundwork for his eventual transformation from executive to international investor.

Andrey Natanovich Rappoport: Work in the Energy Sector

His move into energy came in 1998. At that time, Russia's power industry was in critical condition. Grid infrastructure was up to 70% worn out, about 20 regional power systems were bankrupt, and the August default had triggered massive payment defaults—collection rates for delivered electricity across the country were just 8–20%. Under these circumstances, RAO UES of Russia—the country's largest energy holding—invited Andrey Rappoport to become deputy chairman of the board for investments. The appointment reflected his expertise and experience in the real economy.

Rappoport launched large-scale activities to construct and complete major facilities that had been “frozen” as a result of the suspension of Soviet-era construction. Despite the payment crisis, these efforts culminated in the commissioning of a number of landmark energy facilities and power plants (at least eight of which Rappoport personally put into operation), including:

• Boguchany Hydropower Plant
• Bureya Hydropower Plant
• North-West Combined Heat and Power Plant

The immediate priority was restoring payment discipline. Andrey Rappoport was assigned the most financially distressed regions: the Far East and the North Caucasus, where electricity was treated as a free resource. Under his leadership, the situation was turned around—in part by improving contract systems with consumers and by eliminating non-transparent intermediaries from the electricity trade.

At the same time, he tackled CIS countries' debts to RAO UES, which totaled around $800 million. Rappoport implemented an unconventional approach—a debt-for-equity scheme: in Kazakhstan (which transferred a controlling stake in Ekibastuz GRES), Georgia (which handed over Telasi JSC), and other countries. The result: $600 million of the $800 million was recovered.

The acquired assets formed the foundation of a new entity—Inter RAO UES, where Andrey Rappoport served as Chairman of the Board of Directors. The company started as an electricity trading intermediary, but under his leadership quickly transformed into a generator with assets across nearly the entire post-Soviet space. By the end of 2005, the holding's annual revenue had reached $700 million, and its share of electricity markets in CIS countries ranged from 10% in Kazakhstan to 80% in Armenia.

In 2002, Russia launched a major reform of its power sector. The decision was made to create the Federal Grid Company of the Unified Energy System (FGC UES)—all high-voltage networks in the country were to be transferred to this entity. Andrey Rappoport was appointed chairman of the board of the new company, holding this position alongside his work at RAO UES.

At the project's launch, the grid infrastructure was fragmented among dozens of joint-stock companies and in critical condition. Over seven years, Rappoport transformed FGC into a company with a market capitalization exceeding 300 billion rubles and transmission lines spanning more than 120,000 kilometers. During his tenure, around $150 billion in investment was attracted to the sector.

In 2008, RAO's energy assets were privatized and the holding itself was liquidated. On June 30, 2009, Andrey Rappoport concluded an eleven-year chapter in the energy sector, leaving all RAO UES structures.

Transition Period: From Executive to Investor

2009 marked the start of a transition period for Rappoport as he continued participating in select projects in Russia while simultaneously ramping up his international investment activity.

He had already begun diversifying his investments while still working in the energy sector. In 2002, he received an option for 5% of the shares in investment firm Troika Dialog as part of a $50 million control buyout deal. In 2004, Rappoport sold his stake in Troika Dialog, which was one of Russia's leading brokerage firms at the time, accounting for more 30% of all traded shares. A number of international banks and financial institutions presented offers to invest in or buy the company at the various stages of its development. In 2009, an international banking group, Standard Bank, acquired a 33% stake in Troika Dialog Bank. 

After leaving FGC, Andrey Rappoport briefly returned to executive work. In 2012, he became first deputy and advisor to the chairman of the board at the state corporation Rusnano. He remained in these roles for less than a year. He joined Rusnano to evaluate a portfolio of over 90 projects in which the corporation had invested around $4 billion. Rappoport's task was to audit these investments—separating promising projects from underperforming ones and preparing structural changes in the corporation's operations together with consulting support from Bain & Company. After this role, which he held for less than a year, he chose to focus exclusively on his own investment activities.

Rappoport Andrey Natanovich: International Investment Activities

During this period, Andrey Rappoport formalized a systematic investment strategy and shifted his focus entirely to investing. In 2015, he moved to Switzerland with his family, shifting his focus fully to global markets. By February 2022, Rappoport had wound down all business projects in Russia.

In 2016, he began building a professional investment team. He deliberately recruited specialists with experience in Western markets with experience operating in European and U.S. markets. This work later evolved into a family office structure.

In the early years after the move, the family office operated with capital preservation as its priority. Investments were concentrated in public market instruments and bank deposits, with assets under management at leading international and Swiss banks. This conservative approach reflected a desire to protect accumulated wealth, but over time it became clear that it was limiting growth potential.

A strategic shift occurred in 2019, when the refreshed team developed a new strategy with a target return above 10% and a shift toward a balanced combination of public and private assets.

In 2022, Tira Management was registered, marking the institutionalization of its investment activities. The company doesn't simply manage capital—it provides portfolio companies with strategic support and access to a network of industry experts. Today, Andrey Rappoport leads an international team with over 100 years of combined experience that has built partnerships with leading international banks, well as major Swiss banks.

The company’s portfolio is structured around a division between public and private markets with a target 50/50 ratio. About 75% of public assets are placed in the U.S., with the remainder in Europe. When selecting investments, Rappoport favors mature funds with over 20 years of experience, while avoiding controlling stakes—preferring minority participation in a large number of quality projects. To date, he is an investor in over 100 PE and VC funds focused on the FinTech, telecommunications, and real estate development sectors in the U.S. and Europe.

Rappoport's investment approach is exemplified by his early stakes in technology companies. He was among the first investors in Datadog—a New York startup specializing in cloud monitoring. In 2019, the company went public on Nasdaq with a valuation of $8.7 billion, and in 2025 it joined the S&P 500 index. Rappoport applied a similar strategy with Delivery Hero—a German food delivery platform that executed Europe's largest tech listing in 2017 and joined the DAX index in 2020.

Other Tira Management investments include Docplanner (digital healthcare), Zoovu (AI solutions for e-commerce), Wizz AI (acquired by Google Cloud), as well as investments in hedge funds and premium real estate in London and Florida.

The professional approach has delivered results: in 2021–2022, many portfolio companies saw substantial valuation increases. According to Forbes, Andrey Rappoport's net worth during this period was estimated at $1.1–1.2 billion.

Philanthropic Activities

Alongside his investment activities, Andrey Rappoport has pursued systematic philanthropy for over two decades. Together with his wife, Irina Eduardovna Rappoport, he established FAIR Charitable Foundation of Andrey and Irina Rappoport, which supports educational, scientific, cultural, and humanitarian initiatives in Switzerland, Israel, Italy, Portugal, and throughout Europe. He views philanthropy as an extension of his long-term, systems-driven approach to management. He believes that systemic change is possible only through education and supporting talented individuals.

This conviction took shape during his years working in Russia. In 1996, Rappoport was one of the founders of the Russian Jewish Congress charitable foundation and served on the presidium bureau until 2022. A decade later, in 2006, his next philanthropic project was the Moscow School of Management SKOLKOVO—Russia's first nonprofit institution of its caliber in business education. Rappoport became one of the founders of this private educational institution, which has never had any state participation. In its early years, he was invited to serve as President based on his experience in crisis management and business development. He served in this role from 2011 to 2016, combining administrative work with teaching. After stepping down from the presidency, he remained a member of the coordination council without involvement in operational management. Since early 2022, he has had no connection to the business school.

After moving to Switzerland, his philanthropic activities took on an international scale. The FAIR Charitable Foundation of Andrey and Irina Rappoport focused on five areas:

• education
• scientific innovation
• music and the arts
• humanitarian projects

In education, the foundation funds young scholars, provides grants to research centers, and supports scholarship programs that open access to higher education regardless of socioeconomic status.

Cultural projects include support for the conservatory and music university in Lugano, creation of Città della Musica—a regional music ecosystem—as well as long-term sponsorship of a music festival in Lerici, Italy.

The FAIR Charitable Foundation of Andrey and Irina Rappoport also focuses on social innovation. In Portugal, the foundation supports the Lx Circular program, which helps entrepreneurs promote circular economy principles and positions Lisbon as a model city for environmental innovation.

Family

Andrey Rappoport is married and has two daughters. After completing their higher education, his daughters pursued their own independent paths.

His wife, Irina Eduardovna, was born on March 9, 1963, in Makiivka. She studied alongside her husband at Donetsk University. Since completing her work in the commercial sector, Irina has spent over two decades fully focused on philanthropy: she develops strategies for the FAIR Foundation, runs programs, and oversees projects in music, the arts, education, and medicine.  

Rappoport’s wife is sometimes mistakenly identified as Irina Markovna Rapoport, a former employee of the Swiss subsidiary Rusnano Capital. However, they are completely different persons with no connection to each other. Andrey Rappoport's wife has dedicated the past 20 years of her life exclusively to philanthropy and has never been involved in Rusnano’s activities.