Vladimir Yakunin was appointed president of Russian Railways by the Government of the Russian Federation in June 2005 following the appointment of the Company’s previous president, Gennady Fadeyev, as an advisor to Russian prime minister Mikhail Fradkov.

Born in 1948, Yakunin graduated from the Leningrad Institute of Mechanics as a Mechanical Engineer in 1972 and began his career as a junior research scientist at the State Institute of Applied Chemistry. After completing military service in the Soviet Army, he worked as an engineer and senior engineer at the Administration of the State Committee of the Council of Ministers of the USSR for Foreign Trade and was also head of department at the A. F. Yoffe Physics and Technical Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.

Between 1985 and 1991, Yakunin was Second and then First Secretary of the USSR’s Permanent Representative Office at the United Nations. He was then Chairman of the Board at the International Centre for Business Cooperation before becoming head of the North-Western Federal District Inspectorate of the Senior Control Department of the President of the Russian Federation

Yakunin became Deputy Minister of Transport in October 2000 and first Deputy Minister of Railways in February 2002. In October 2003, the Board of Russian Railways unanimously appointed Yakunin First Vice-President of the Company.

Since January 2006, has been the scientific leader and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Governance and Problem Analysis Centre attached to the Economics Section of the Department of Social Sciences at Russian Academy of Sciences (www.rusrand.ru).

In October 2007, he was awarded the Company medal “Honoured Rail Employee of Russian Railways” for his great contribution to implementing measures to reform rail transport, elaborating the development strategy of Russia’s railways, ensuring a constructive social policy and effective cooperation with Russia’s government and regions and with foreign railway administrations and international organizations, Yakunin was reappointed President of Russian Railways by Russian Government Decree No. 843-r dated 12 June 2008.