OREANDA-NEWS. April 21, 2010. The EBRD has created the position of Managing Director for Russia, the largest of its 30 countries of operation, and has named Natalia Vladimirovna Khanjenkova as the first holder of this new post, reported the press-centre of EBRD.

The appointment, in which Mrs. Khanjenkova will report to the Bank’s First Vice President, Varel Freeman, will become effective on 1 May 2010.

Mrs. Khanjenkova will thus become the first Russian national to head the Bank’s operations in Russia. It will also be the first time in Bank’s history that Russia is the sole area of responsibility of one of the members of the EBRD's senior management.

Mrs. Khanjenkova joined the EBRD in 1993 and moved to Moscow in 2007 where she is currently working as Director in charge of the Bank’s Infrastructure and Energy business in Russia. She will continue to be based in Moscow in her new position.

Commenting on the appointment, Mr. Freeman said: “Natasha Khanjenkova’s considerable skills and wide experience in key sectors of the EBRD’s operations eminently qualify her to fill this new position whose creation underlines the increasingly important role played by Russia in fulfilling the Bank’s mission.”

In 2009, the EBRD signed 56 projects in Russia worth EUR2.4 billion and accounting for 30 percent of the Bank’s total business volume last year.

The appointment will bring to eight the number of EBRD Managing Directors, a new title created earlier this year to replace the Bank’s former senior management structure under which the heads of its main operational divisions had previously been known as Business Group Directors.

The previous Business Group Director for Russia, Alain Pilloux, was also in charge of the Bank’s Agribusiness, Property and Tourism sectors. Mr. Pilloux was last January named Managing Director of the EBRD’s newly-created Industry, Commerce and Agribusiness Group.

In addition to its main office in Moscow, the EBRD runs a network of six regional offices stretching from the Baltic Sea to the Pacific Ocean. These are located in Ekaterinburg, Krasnoyarsk, Rostov-on-the-Don, St. Petersburg, Samara and Vladivostok. The EBRD employs around 130 staff in its Russian offices.

Born in 1961, Mrs. Kanjenkova is an economics graduate from the prestigious Moscow State Institute for International Relations (MGIMO).