Nurlan Rakhmetov

Nurlan Rakhmetov was born on 24 September 1965. He began his career in academia after graduating from Moscow State University (Lomonosov MSU) in 1987 in mathematics, later earning a Candidate of Sciences degree in physical and mathematical sciences. From 1990 to 1996 he worked as a junior research fellow at the Institute of Mathematics and Mechanics of the Kazakh SSR Academy of Sciences and then as a senior lecturer in mathematical analysis at Abai Almaty State University. He subsequently completed a Global Executive MBA from IE Business School (Spain).

He moved into finance and public administration in the late 1990s — first as an economist and head of the planning-finance department at the BUTYA company (1997–1998) and briefly as deputy general director of Kazakhstan Railways ("Qazaqstan Temir Zholy"). He then built a long career in Kazakhstan's fiscal apparatus: Director of the Analysis and Forecasting Department at the Ministry of State Revenues (1998–2001), Vice-Minister of State Revenues (2001–2002), Vice-Minister of Finance (2002–2003), and Chairman of the Tax Committee of the Ministry of Finance (2006–2008). In between he served in senior finance roles in the energy sector, including at KazTransGas/Intergas Central Asia (2003–2004) and as Managing Director for Economics and Finance at national oil company KazMunayGas (2004–2006).

From November 2008 onward he was a Managing Director and Board Member of JSC "Samruk-Kazyna," Kazakhstan's sovereign wealth fund, where he oversaw finance and later portfolios such as transformation, privatization and restructuring. He also chaired the board of Samruk-Kazyna Business Service LLP, chaired the Board of Directors of Kazpost, and sat on the boards of national companies including Samruk-Energy and KazMunayGas. He was widely cited by Kazakh media as a leading voice on the Fund's financial transparency.

Notably, in 2008 he voluntarily resigned as Chairman of the Tax Committee following the corruption arrest of a subordinate, stating: *"I wrote a resignation letter of my own accord. I could not act differently, since I was the first to accept such an obligation."* He died on 23 July 2026.

Not applicable in the venture/angel sense. Rakhmetov was a state-fund financial executive, not a startup investor. In his own public statements his focus was on the financial governance and transparency of Samruk-Kazyna's portfolio of state-owned enterprises:

• Championed Samruk-Kazyna's transparency, publicly asserting the fund ranked "number one" among sovereign funds on transparency measures.
• His remit centered on corporate finance, tax policy, restructuring, privatization, and the IPO/listing agenda for large state companies (e.g., KazMunayGas, Kazpost, Samruk-Energy) — not seed-stage or early-stage private companies.
• No documented personal angel/seed check-writing, thesis, sector focus, or check-size range exists in public sources.