Alexander Nesis is the founder, president, and CEO of the ICT Group with an estimated net worth of $3.3 billion as of March 2013. Born Alexander Nesis Natanovich on December 19, 1962 in Leningrad, USSR, he graduated with a degree in radiochemistry in 1962 at the prestigious Lensovet Leningrad Institute of Technology.

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Forbes ranked Nesis as the 30th richest person in Russia and 412nd in the list of World Billionaires. He began earning his estimated net worth of $3.3 billion as a master supervisor at the Baltic Shipbuilding Yards, the largest and one of the oldest in Russia established in 1856. It produced various ships such as nuclear icebreakers and submarines. He left the company in the early 90's to work for himself rather than for the state. He worked with a small group of business partners and concentrated on the production of materials derived from uranium deposits found in the deserts of Uzbekistan. In 1991, they went to invest in the shipbuilding and metals industries. In 1993, their company became known as the ICT (Investments, Construction, Technologies) Group. He then returned to Baltic Shipbuilding Yards in the same year and became its controlling shareholder and the Head of the Board of Directors.

Today, ICT Group is one of the largest privately owned investment and industrial companies in Russia which invests, develops and manages assets in the banking and financial industry, metals and mining, precious metal production, heavy engineering, logistics, construction and development. Its portfolio of assets under management includes NOMOS-BANK, Khanty-Mansi Bank, Polymetal and Tikhvin Freight Car Building Plant. It owns large equity stakes in the potash producer Uralkali and Baltic Leasing. It also controls a railroad car repair factory, a chemicals factory and land for housing developments.

Alexander Nesis created miner Polymetal but sold the company in 1995 to Suleiman Kerimov, who is now a fellow billionaire. Three years after, amidst the financial crisis, he bought back a stake in the company at a rock-bottom price.