Denis Bugrov joined Sberbank in February 2008, but the former McKinsey executive is still not quite used to hand-signing memoranda to set his decisions in motion. After 13 years as a management consultant advising Russian banks and telecoms companies, he was one of several new board members brought in by German Gref, who became Sberbank's CEO in November 2007 after stepping down as Russia's economy minister.
As head of strategy, Mr Bugrov's brief is to modernise a bank whose state ownership and size - 250,000 staff across a 21,000-branch network - has led to its characterisation as a bloated government department rather than an efficient financial institution.
