OREANDA-NEWS. July 02, 2014. Sberbank of Russia announces that Olga Kanovich, Member of the Board, Senior Vice-President of Sberbank of Russia, is leaving the position of Head of the Operations Block of the bank. This decision is related to Ms Kanovich’s personal circumstances.

Olga Kanovich will continue working with Sberbank as an Advisor to Herman Gref, CEO & Chairman of the Board of Sberbank of Russia. In this position she will represent the interests of the bank in international, governmental and public organisations, including SWIFT and CLS.

Natalia Dirks has been appointed Head of the Operations Block. Natalia has worked at Sberbank since 2010, having gone from being the Director of the Yuzhny Port Client Transaction Support Centre to Director of the Operations Department & Head of the network of Sberbank's client transaction support centres. She has over two decades of banking industry experience. Prior to joining the bank, Natalia was First Deputy Chairman of the Board & Director of the Operations Group at Banca Intesa CJSC.

Herman Gref, CEO & Chairman of the Board of Sberbank of Russia, remarked: “On behalf of Sberbank I would like to thank Olga for her productive several-year contribution as Head of the Operations Block. Having joined the bank in 2008, she immediately began working on the most pressing issues together with a team of managers. At the time she was faced with the challenging task of modernising the Operations Block and bringing it into line with leading international standards and practices in order to ultimately increase the speed at which operations are performed and make our services more convenient for clients. This goal was successfully achieved thanks to the professionalism of Olga and her colleagues. At an international level, Olga Kanovich’s efforts to consolidate and develop the Russian community of SWIFT shareholders helped improve the Russia’s financial market and furthered its integration into the global financial system. I am glad that Olga will continue to work with us in a new role. I would also like to wish Natalia Dirks good luck in her new role; I am pleased that this position will be held by someone from our bank's personnel reserve.”

Olga Kanovich said: “I would like to thank the management of the bank and my team for their colossal amount of support and strong team spirit. We have completed many interesting and energetic projects, and there are new strategic tasks ahead.”

In 2012 Olga Kanovich was elected Chairman of the Russian community of SWIFT shareholders and users – the Russian National SWIFT Association (ROSSWIFT). Over the past two years Russia, and Sberbank in particular, have achieved first place globally in terms of growth within the international SWIFT community. In addition, as a representative of Sberbank Ms Kanovich is playing an active role in negotiations on making the Russian rouble one of the settlement currencies of the CLS system. This is an important step towards creating an international financial centre in Russia.

In 1993 Olga Kanovich graduated with a cum laude diploma from the Plekhanov Russian Academy of Economics, having specialised in Finance and Credit. She joined Sberbank in February 2008. Prior to that, from 2004 to 2008 she was Senior Vice-President, Director of Operations Department and a member of the Executive Board at VTB24 Bank. From 2003 to 2004 she held the positions of Processes and Technologies Director and Managing Director of Processes and Technologies Department at Alfa Eco M (presently А1). From 2000 to 2003 she headed the Banking Processes Department at Alfa-Bank. Olga began her banking industry career in 1994 at Probusinessbank JCB.

Olga Kanovich is a holder of the Golden Badge of Sberbank (the bank's highest award for notable achievements in the field of banking and personal contributions to the development of Sberbank of Russia), and a recipient of the Order for Distinguished Service, Second Class. Also she was honoured by a Citation of the President of the Russian Federation.