Kirill Tsarev, First Deputy Chairman Of Sberbank: Customer Loyalty Is The Main Asset

Sber of today is not just the largest bank and provider of financial services in Russia. It is now an actively developing system of dozens of services that people use every day. “A personal assistant and navigator”, which provides 100 million Russians with a wide range of ways to optimize time, energy, and money — this is how one of the country’s strongest financial brands positions itself.

Kirill Tsarev is responsible for the private customer experience at Sberbank. As the First Deputy Chairman of the Management Board, he is responsible for the development of the B2C segment in an ever-expanding digital system.

Contents

• At the origins of Russian leasing
• Career in Sberbank
• Caring for people as a business strategy

At The Origins Of Russian Leasing

Kirill Tsarev is the First Deputy Chairman of the Management Board of Sberbank. His biography includes both developing his own business and working in banking structures. Tsarev was born in Leningrad in 1978. In 2000 he graduated from St. Petersburg Marine Technical University and became a certified Manager in Economics. By that time, he had already obtained work experience in this field and even his own successful start-up company.

Kirill Tsarev started working as a student and launched his own business project around that time. His first employer was a Finnish company, Baltic-Unit OY, where he acted as a general representative. Three years later, Kirill moved to the position of economist at Project Economics Centre Ltd.

The same year, in 1999, he decided to launch his own project and chose to do it in the field of leasing, which was just beginning to develop in Russia. The aspiring businessman managed to find a reliable investor, the International Bank of St. Petersburg. This is how Interleasing appeared.

After launching the business, the top manager held the position of general director at Interleasing and then became one of the partners. He later began to master the banking business, joining the International Bank of St. Petersburg and subsequently working there for about 10 years in various positions.

“It is no exaggeration to say that I am well aware of the problems of entrepreneurs, regardless of the scale of their business.”

The diversity of work tasks required not only economic but also in-depth legal knowledge, so Kirill Tsarev decided to pursue a second university degree — this time in the sphere of law.

Career In Sberbank

By 2011, the top manager had accumulated considerable experience in both leasing and banking. Interleaving, which dealt with motor vehicles and had a large branch network, had weathered the harsh crisis of 2008 almost unscathed. The credibility of Kirill Tsarev in this segment allowed him to become the president of the United Leasing Association.

This set of competencies caught the interest of Sberbank of Russia: Kirill Tsarev was invited to join the leasing subsidiary. There he first acted as an adviser, then took up the position of Deputy CEO, and after some time, he headed the company himself.

In an article published by Forbes magazine, the top manager focused on the importance of leasing. According to him, this financial instrument is no less important for the economy than traditional lending and is even more promising when considering the modernization and development of non-resource segments.

When developing the leasing business at Sberbank, the manager tried to take into account the interests of all levels of business: both the large ones, which bought ships and airliners, and the small ones. “I am well aware of the problems of entrepreneurs, regardless of the scale of their business,” — stressed the top manager, who has had the experience of being both an entrepreneur and the director of a large company.

“Customers can already use Sber’s virtual assistants themselves and save time on routine tasks.”

Caring For People As A Business Strategy

The next stage of Tsarev’s career was related to the development of Sberbank’s service system. In October 2020, the top manager became the head of the Retail Business division, and a month later he joined the bank’s Management Board. In 2022, Sberbank’s system was divided into two main blocks: B2B — for corporate clients, and B2C — for private clients, i.e. for the widest range of users. The largest Russian bank currently has over 100 million, such users.

In developing this area, the deputy chairman makes every effort to ensure that Sber services meet and even exceed customer expectations. He has repeatedly emphasized in his interviews that customer loyalty and their desire to use Sber services on a daily basis are key values for the bank, far outweighing the importance of an immediate benefit.

“We want to be with our customers throughout their whole lives, living up to their trust year after year.”

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