Mikhail Mikhailovich Zadornov

Mikhail Mikhailovich Zadornov (born 4 May 1963) is a Russian economist, banker and politician. He served as finance minister from 1997 to 1999 and first deputy prime minister just for three days in May 1999.

Zadornov was born in Moscow on 4 May 1963. His family are geologists.

In 1984, he graduated from Plekhanov Russian University of Economics and received a bachelor's degree in planning of the national economy with a specialty in economics. From 1986 to 1988, he attended the Institute of Economy of the USSR Academy of Sciences and received a PhD degree in economics.

Zadornov worked at the Institute of the Economy, at the planning and budgetary commission of the USSR Supreme Council and at the Institute of the Economy of the USSR Academy of Sciences as a research assistant and expert from 1989 to 1990. He served as a member of the Council of the Economic and Political Studies Center from 1991 to 1993. He was co-author of the "500 days" program of the Gorbachev era and involved in drafting the first Soviet package of legislative acts on the privatization of state property. He later became part of Anatoly B. Chubais's economic team.

He was a member of the liberal Yabloko party. He was a State Duma lower house deputy, representing a district in Kamchatka, from 1994 to 1997 and led the parliamentary budget, taxes, banks and finances committee.

On 9 November 1997, he was appointed finance minister to the cabinet led by Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin. Zadarnov left both Yabloko and his seat at the parliament following his appointment. He continued to serve as finance minister in the cabinet of Sergei Kiriyenko. He was reappointed to the post in the cabinet of Yevgeny Primakov in September 1998. His reappointment led to resignations of two ministers in the cabinet due to economic crisis in Russia.

He was made first deputy prime minister for financial affair in the next cabinet formed by Sergei V. Stepashin on 25 May 1999. However, only three days after his appointment Zadornov resigned from office due to the rejection of his intention to retain the finance portfolio in the cabinet.

In December 1999, he ran for office in the elections as an independent candidate and won a seat from a district in Moscow. In 2004, he and another independent deputy, Vladimir Ryzhkov, established an association, "Democratic Alternative". Until 2005 Zadornov served at the lower house and in its committees. After leaving politics he became chairman and president of the VTB-24 bank in 2005. On 27 July 2011, he was appointed director of Bank of Moscow and in July 2011, he was also made chairman of JSC TransCreditBank. In addition, he is director of the OAO Svyazinvest.

Views

Zadornov is a liberal and an advocate of the free-market economics and monetarism. He supported for and implemented tough fiscal policies when he was finance minister.

Zadornov is married and has a daughter.