“My primary task is to maintain the nuclear industry development at the same fastest pace it has reached in recent years, prevent deceleration of the currently running projects with the change of management, and improve safety practices”, Alexei Likhachov said in his interview to the industry newspaper Strana Rosatom.

According to him, an offer to head the state nuclear corporation came from the former Rosatom’s CEO Sergei Kirienko. “No doubt that the decision was made by the President. With all the trust Vladimir Putin puts in me, I feel great responsibility for the office”, Likhachov remarked.

The former First Deputy Minister of Economic Development, Alexei Likhachov was appointed Rosatom’s CEO by the President on 5 October. Sergei Kirienko was in his turn appointed First Deputy Chief of Staff of the Presidential Executive Office. In his new role, Sergei Kirienko is responsible for Russia’s domestic policy. Accounts of the new appointment appeared in national mass media. “Kirienko is a very good manager and a long-term insider of the administration. 

Background

Alexei Likhachov was born on 23 December 1962 in Sarov, a town in the Nizhny Novgorod (former Gorky) region. In 1985, he graduated from Lobachevsky State University with a degree in radiophysics. In 1998, he received a doctorate degree in Economics from the same university.

In the late 1980s, Alexei Likhachov worked as an engineer at Gorky Research Institute of Instrumentation Engineering. There he was appointed secretary of the local Komsomol Committee and later promoted to the secretary of Gorky Municipal Komsomol Committee. Sergei Kirienko worked in the Gorky Region Komsomol Committee in the same years.

In 1992, Alexei Likhachov was appointed manager of Aval, an insurance company from Nizhny Novgorod. He was also a member of the Russian Parliament in 1999–2007, and held a position of Deputy Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee for Economic Policy, Business and Tourism. In 2007–2008, he was an advisor to the Minister of Economic Development of the Russian Federation and was promoted to Director of the Foreign Trade Analysis and Regulation Department of the Ministry of Energy in 2008–2010. In 2010, he was made Deputy Minister of Economic Development and subsequently promoted to First Deputy Minister. On 5 October 2016, the President of Russia appointed Alexei Likhachov as Chief Executive Officer of Rosatom.