Arkady Volozh is the principal founder of Yandex and he has an estimated net worth of $1.15 billion as of March 2013 according to Forbes. He is also the 94th richest person in Russia and is ranked 1250th in the list of World Billionaires.

Mr. Volozh is also the largest individual shareholder of the Russian search engine which led to his estimated net worth of $1.15 billion. He founded the company in 1997 as an acronym for the phrase “Yet Another iNDEXer.” It has 60% of the Russian search market while Google only has around 26%. In spring of 2011, Yandex and its shareholders has gained more than $1.3 billion in an initial public offering on NASDAQ.

Arkady Volozh has been the chief executive officer and director since 2000. He left his position in 2000 as the CEO of CompTek International, one of the largest distributors of network and telecom equipment in Russia, which he also founded.

A graduate of applied mathematics, Arkady Yurievich Volozh earned his degree at Gubkin Russian State University of Oil and Gas in 1986. He then worked at a state pipeline research institute but later chose to start his own business by importing personal computers from Austria. He soon founded several IT enterprises such as CompTek and InfiNet Wireless, a Russian provider of wireless networking technology.