Andrey Gunin: A Journey through His Life

Born on March 20th, 1976, Andrey Gunin started his career path with a Diploma of Economist earned in St. Petersburg (Russia) and an MBA from Kellogg School of Management (United States) At age of 29, he became one of the youngest CFOs, and continued his successful and fast-paced career by taking CFO positions in the largest Russian private companies followed by an entrepreneur and educator positions. Andrey Gunin’s career has taken many fascinating twists and turns. His expertise in management, global finance markets and technological advancements have made him a force to be reckoned with in the finance industry.

Educational Background

Gunin’s early years are marked by a strong educational foundation. He pursued higher education at St. Petersburg University of Economics and Finance, graduating in 1997. In his first job with PricewaterhouseCoopers he went on to achieve ACCA certification in the UK, an accomplishment that clearly shows his excellence in accounting and finance. His final degree came from the Kellogg School of Management in the US, where he graduated with an MBA with majors in Finance, Marketing, and Management in 2004.

In addition to his impressive degrees, Gunin is fluent in English and has a working knowledge of German, Portuguese, and French. His strong language abilities and global perspective have allowed him to engage in many diverse cultural and business environments successfully.

Career Trajectory

Gunin’s impressive career trajectory is defined by his diverse pivotal roles across major corporations like PricewaterhouseCoopers, Rolf Group, Svyaznoy. Within these roles, Gunin developed skills in corporate management, operational leadership and strategic vision.  At PricewaterhouseCoopers, Gunin started as an audit consultant and later moved on to the financial consulting services. This experience gave him a solid foundation in accounting and corporate finance, which he later took with him to Media Most, where he acted as Finance Director of the internet division. Here, Gunin leveraged technology to drive financial strategies and focus on the digital transformation of business models.

After spending two years in the US and graduating from Kellogg, he joined Rolf Group where he implemented a legal and organizational restructuring of the group, as well as IFRS financial reporting. He also successfully fundraised using syndicated loans and Eurobond issues. Under Andrey Gunin’s management Rolf has become the pioneer of fundraising from outside of Russia which at the time was mainly available to state owned corporations and natural resource giants. The approach to management and funding demonstrated by its CFO made a noticeable difference and as a private company from consumer sector Rolf has become one of the most sought after by investors. Rolf’s syndicated loan from western banks became the largest syndicated deal for a private company from Russia at the time.

Gunin personally demonstrated very proactive and transparent approach in his dealings with banks and investors which played major role when the Russian economy was badly hurt by the world financial crisis in 2008 and the company had to restructure its financing facilities. This restructuring of finance facilities from banks, bondholders and suppliers was one of the most complex and rightful deals that investment bankers and corporate lawyers witnessed during that crisis. As Gunin mentioned in one of his later interviews, he has received a number of personal emails from international investors which expressed gratitude and admiration for the manner how he handled the process. Due to these accomplishments, he earned gratitude and respect from the shareholder of the Group, and his role expanded to include operational leadership opportunities, letting him manage complex business development issues on international scale.

This is how Gunin earned recognition and respect among western financial community, Japanese largest corporations, Chinese and Korean carmakers, European logistics suppliers and others. His strategic leadership skills greatly assisted the Svyaznoy Group, the mobile and digital equipment retailer, which he joined later on with a key goal to prepare it for IPO. He enhanced corporate governance and drove financial improvements for the group, acting as both Group CFO and the CEO in the key operating division.

During his tenure Gunin raised funding, participated in launching several new retail formats, coordinated the corporate strategy review process. All of it has led to the major commercial success of the Group which finally overtook its long-time rival and made Svyaznoy an undisputed market leader. One of the impressive manifestations of this success was the recognition of Svyaznoy’s financial and commercial standing by Apple which signed the first direct supply contract with a retailer in Eastern Europe, giving Svyaznoy important market advantage.

After the change in Svyaznoy’s ownership Gunin decided to give in to his desire of independent entrepreneurship. He launched his consulting practice, working with large corporations and smaller startups. This was an extraordinary step for a top manager of his level. Often, people working in top positions in large organizations lose their dynamism and mobility and get used to corporate ivory tower with its bureaucracy and comfort. However, Andrey Gunin always wanted to be in the thick of things and do what matters. In this new capacity he worked with leaders of the market, such as Rolf, Askona Holding, Valnet-Center advising them on corporate strategy, operational and financial performance, M&A activities, fundraising. He also got involved into the world of fintech startups by taking on an effective CFO role for Revo Technologies, where he successfully empowered this small fintech startup through equity raising and strategic advising, helping it to grow greatly within its sector.

Even though these consulting projects took up significant time and effort Andrey Gunin did not miss entrepreneurial opportunities. Since 2016, he embarked on two  own ventures together with his business partners. The first one, a mobile application named Selfie Battle, was a social network integrated with distinctive gamification elements. The project was launched on Apple and Google platforms and received very positive feedback from the first few thousands of users.

However, the concept failed to gain sufficient commercial traction, leaving the partners with a difficult decision to discontinue the project. However, this has not discouraged Gunin from his further endeavors. He likes to repeat after Jeff Bezos that failure and invention are inseparable twins. This proved to be accurate based on his own experience. Several months later he and his partners launched a homewear line of clothing MyBearMood (recently rebranded to Mutemood).

Gunin was enthusiastic about designing an innovative, high-quality product that would evoke a “WOW” effect with customers, and their new venture successfully achieved this goal. He conceived the idea of producing and marketing not only individual articles of clothing but an entire clothing set in oversize and unisex designs. This unique approach rendered MyBearMood clothing an ideal gift for both men and women, with one size accommodating customers ranging from XS to XL sizes, or for couples who could mix and match from the four unisex pieces in the set. This allowed the company grow and achieve remarkably high customer retention rates.

Overall, Gunin is held in high esteem by business community in Russia and internationally. This recognition started very early when in 2005 he has become the youngest CFO in Russia and in 2006 the prestigious business journal “Finance” included him into its first rating of the most successful 33 young people in Russian business. Going forward Gunin was repeatedly featured in the annual ratings of top managers in Russia. He received numerous endorsements from senior international business figures who note his professionalism, innovation and integrity. Even though Gunin successfully transitioned into entrepreneurial consulting role his reputation has had a significant effect and he remained on the top list of the candidates for the headhunters and continues to receive calls and offers from Russian and international players. However, until recently, he has not been eager to return to the big corporate world finding enough of interesting opportunities in his advising capacity.

Guiding principles and values

As a recognized business leader Gunin is also one of the most sought after figures by educational institutions in Russia which are interested in giving practical business perspective to their students. He has come several times as a guest speaker to Skolkovo, the most prestigious business school in Russia, where he shared his experience, discussed different real-life cases and provided students with his view on building successful businesses. However, his interest in educating the new generation of business leaders went much further. Being cognisant of the social responsibility of business organizations and seeing numerous governance issues in today’s world he has created his own course of lectures on sustainable development and ethical decision making and he taught this course to the students of one of the universities in Moscow in 2023. These topics reflect his commitment to greater societal issues at hand and demonstrate his core principles and values.

One of Andrey Gunin’s greatest core values is his integrity. He displayed impeccable integrity and responsibility in all his work, such as executing complex debt restructuring for Rolf Group during world financial crisis or navigating Svyaznoy during serious shareholders’ conflict. He managed to find common ground with top professionals of different business cultures: American bankers, European businesses, Japanese corporate moguls and Chinese distributors. His ethical principles helped him to navigate in different complex political landscapes and succeed in any organization he has been a part of.

He is also fully committed to excellence and education. He always ensures that his products and management services are high-quality and impactful for those who need them. Gunin likes to repeat the corporate motto which existed at Rolf: “An excellent company for excellent people”. This is the attitude he takes with himself in every organization he works for. By investing his time and energy into constant self-education and education of others, he also shows a commitment to advancing industry standards by gaining more knowledge and sharing it through the generations.

Future Aspirations

In the future, Gunin hopes to use his experience in CFO and CEO roles as well as his entrepreneurial abilities to make an impact in other markets. In 2023 he consulted a company based in Dubai on its corporate strategy and financial structure. Having spent many years on the top positions of large companies in the fast-growing economy he always sees different business opportunities in every market that he deals with. For example, in Brazil that he has visited many times as a holiday destination he sees a lot of similarities with the situation in Russia several years ago, which means that a lot of practices and ideas implemented in Russia can be thoughtfully replicated in Latin America.

Being a frequent traveler to the US he sees a massive potential in the fintech industry here. Gunin thinks that there is an opportunity to bring disruptive financial technologies to the US, ones that can democratize access to financial services for many individuals and significantly improve customer experience in payments and banking.

He also hopes to continue expanding his role in education through guest lectures with various academic institutions and continuation of his self-education and research. Gunin’s lifelong journey in the corporate and entrepreneurial world has made a huge impact on those around him. From his former colleagues to his current clients, Gunin’s professional expertise and excellence attitude has helped them grow and thrive. As he sets his sights on the new markets, Gunin’s experiences and bright mind will certainly continue to inspire and impact people and businesses around him.

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