Igor Kalganov was fired from the post of CEO of T1 Group

As it became known to Kommersant, the general director of the T1 group, Igor Kalganov, is leaving the company, which he headed for a little over a year. A number of other top managers may leave with him. During the year of leadership, Mr. Kalganov announced a number of major projects, including investments in the production of microelectronics, drones, space technologies, and spoke about plans for an IPO. Sources in the IT market believe that it was “excessive initiative and independence” that raised questions from shareholders.

The CEO of the T1 group, Igor Kalganov, will leave his post in the near future, a Kommersant source in the IT market told Kommersant. “Top managers of the company that controls T1 are dissatisfied with Kalganov’s work, the likelihood of his leaving is high,” a Kommersant source in T1 clarified. According to one of Kommersant’s interlocutors, “Olga Dobryakova, deputy director for strategy, is in a similar situation.” In T1, Kommersant confirmed that Igor Kalganov was leaving the holding, without specifying the details. Mr. Kalganov himself declined to comment.

Igor Kalganov was appointed CEO of T1 Group in May 2022. He replaced Sergey Solovyov, who headed the company in 2020–2022. Mr. Kalganov himself at that time was the CEO of the Innotech group (part of T1), and from 2019 to 2020 he served as technical director and vice president of ICS Holding. In the message of the T1 group, dedicated to the appointment of Mr. Kalganov, it was said that he would be responsible “for adapting the company’s strategy to new conditions, creating and developing new technological areas within the holding, and improving operational efficiency.”

In the spring of 2022, after the bank was included in the US SDN list, VTB announced the sale of a share to Os, a closed-end mutual investment fund. Now, according to SPARK Interfax, the T1 ownership structure looks like this: 69.4% – from Yulia Mankos through Sirocco Technology LLC, another 0.1% – from her directly, 30.5% – from Osya . Ms. Mancos’ shares are pledged to VTB. T1’s revenue in 2022, according to its own data, exceeded RUB 166.7 billion. T1 does not disclose net profit, as well as the real beneficiaries of the company. VTB told Kommersant that decisions regarding the top management of the company are the prerogative of its owners: “VTB left T1 shareholders in 2022, today we interact as technology partners.”

For a year of work as the CEO of the T1 group, Igor Kalganov announced plans to conduct an IPO of the company by 2024, and before that, develop it in several capital-intensive areas. For example, in February interview “Kommersant” he spoke about T1’s interest in investing in “the production of microelectronics, drones and aviation equipment, missiles.” Forbes, Mr. Kalganov in June spoke about plans to “deploy a large space program” with SR Space.

In May, the top manager took part in a meeting of UAV developers and manufacturers with President Vladimir Putin. The interlocutor of “Kommersant” in a large IT company believes that the owners of T1 were not satisfied with this “excessive initiative and independence” of Mr. Kalganov.

The top manager of a major Russian software developer agrees that the reason for the dismissal could be “dissatisfaction of shareholders with the work of Igor Kalganov.” Kommersant’s source emphasizes that “T1 is still associated with VTB at least as the main IT contractor” (the bank did not respond to Kommersant’s request) and “perhaps the shareholders were not satisfied with the direction of significant resources for projects that did not related to developments for the bank.

Nikita Korolev, Tatiana Isakova